


my demons, forgive me

by Bauliya



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Pegging, Period-Typical Racism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Roy Has Gay Aunts, Roy Mustang is Xingese, Suicidal Thoughts, Vaginal Sex, Xingese Roy Mustang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:13:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bauliya/pseuds/Bauliya
Summary: When he's two weeks old, he's a Xingese orphan in a tiny border village. When he's fourteen, he's a precocious alchemist and desperately in love. When he's twenty nine, he's a man with shattered dreams and broken promises and a painful title of 'the hero of Ishval'.The story of Roy Mustang, which is a story of guilt, redemption, ambition, lots of singed eyebrows, some very fancy suits, families—found and otherwise, and years and years of pining after Riza Hawkeye.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Olivier Armstrong (referenced), Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang, Roy Mustang/Jean Havoc (brief)
Comments: 51
Kudos: 177





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Jiǔ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15240264) by [agentcalliope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentcalliope/pseuds/agentcalliope). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> to alchemy, love, and war.

They still patrol into the desert, even though most days, and most by a large margin, they find nothing. Around half of the people in their village have some Xingese blood, a grandfather, a parent, an uncle. The descendants of vagabonds. Of refugees. They’re Colmar. The last village before the eastern border. The home of the runaways. 

They find the couple a mile out, half covered by a dune. The man’s dead, the woman’s barely alive, and it’s only when they tug her twig-light body up on a horse when they realise that she’s clutching an infant to her milkless breast. An infant that, miraculously, still manages to suckle, curling his fingers around Harker’s pinky. They trod along the dunes, and he gives the woman water in tiny sips. It revives her enough that she can say _mushu-tei, mushu-tei, mushu-tei,_ softly, over and over again. 

She doesn’t make the night. They light incense and bury her in the local graveyard beside the church, marked only with plank, just another in a sea of anonymous wood for lonely bodies far from home .

—

“What’s his name?” 

“His mother kept saying _mushu-tei_ ,” Harker says, “But that just means.. Help. Or save us.”

“Well, we can’t call you that, can we?” Christmas says, cooing at the little babe. It’s been a week, the baby’s already fat and strong and cries like the demons of hell, “he’s so red.” The sunburn hasn’t healed, and his skin’s peeling in uneven patches, “I’ll call him Roy.” 

“Will you keep him?” Harker rode an entire day, and spent the other in a train, to go see her at Central. Colmar is tiny, always in a drought, always food scarce. And Christmas is kind to orphans, especially ones from her hometown. Especially ones brought to her by her younger brother.

“I have enough mouths to feed,” She says, still holding onto him, “but I suppose I’ve already named him.” 

Harker beams. The boy will be safe. 

—

Roy’s six and does not know any other boys. He knows _men_ , and knows how to deal with them: with a smile and a nod and great care, like they’re vipers ready to strike at an instant, even the friendly ones, _especially_ the friendly ones, who try to pull him close and show him the glint of gold. But he doesn’t know any _boys_. He sees them sometimes, when he goes to the market, and they’re always loud and always clumsy and always rushing. Roy doesn’t understand them. He’s quiet and likes to sew with Claire, who teaches him how to mend rips on the side with the seams so a dress looks new, and how to glide scissors along the length of fabric without snagging or snipping it once. 

It’s a sultry summer day with fluffy clouds, and he has a plan. That plan is to convince Claire to let him hang around on his own while she shops. Which is actually easy, because she’s dying to talk to that lanky boy in the bakery called _Meyer’s_ who always has some flour on his apron, though he can’t quite figure out _why._

She bites her lip. 

“Promise you won’t move.”

“I promise.” 

“And you won’t touch the lake.” 

“I just wanna see the duckies!” 

“Fine,” she huffs, “Fine! Ten minutes, okay?” 

“Okay!” 

“And don’t tell Madam!” 

“I won’t!” 

They’re there, like they always are, until the sun goes down. They’re all bigger than him, though he knows a few of them are his age. 

“Can I play?” 

They stop. Stare. 

“I wanna kick the ball too.” 

“Who’re you?” 

“I’m Roy." 

The tallest one, with the shaggy blond hair, picks up the ball and walks towards him. “I know you,” he sneers, “I’ve seen you. You live in that whorehouse, dont’cha?” 

Roy says he doesn’t know what a whorehouse is. They laugh. It’s ugly. 

“Probably the son of some Xingi whore.” 

“I’m not!” he says, eyes getting hot. He doesn't know what the words mean but he knows that they're sharp, “shut up!” 

“ _Aw,_ are you gonna cry, slanty-eyes?” 

He runs away, and although he stumbles when they throw the ball at his head, he doesn’t fall. He runs straight into the bakery where Claire’s talking to flour-boy, tackles her legs, and hides behind her skirts. 

That night, he asks Madam _what’s a whore._ She puts down her pen, and kneels. “That’s a dirty word, Roy boy. It’s what they call people like me. Like your sisters.” 

“Why?” 

“Because we dare to thrive when they want us dead.” 

“Why?” 

“Oh, boy,” she says. She looks tired. “I don’t know.” 

“What’s Xingi?” 

“Xing _ese_. It’s the people from Xing.” 

“But I’m not.” 

“No, but your parents were.” 

“I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be like them.” 

“Roy.." 

“I don’t!” 

“Roy, come back!” 

His eyes _do_ slant, in the mirror. He tugs them down, into circles, like Claire’s. They don’t stay. He wishes they did. 

—

He’s not that Xingese boy when he’s at the top of his class, so that’s where he stays. He’s also not that Xingese boy when he mouths off at the teachers, shooting whip smart replies with his shoes on the desk, so that’s what he becomes. Roy Mustang. The rebellious prodigy. He’s eleven, and all his friends are _at least_ fourteen, which means that _none_ of his classmates can call him names without being beaten up after school. 

He sneaks them bottles of alcohol and cigarettes every week, into their shady corner of the park, and they’re always grateful, and it’s not quite friendship, but it’s close enough. He also has the unique ability of _being able to talk to girls_ which is admired by every pimply pubescent of the male species. 

“How d’you do it, Mustang?” Gabriel asks him one wintery Wednesday, after he says he has a date with Genevieve Sycamore, the prettiest fourteen year old in school, with cascading blonde ringlets, “This is what, your fifth one this month?” 

Roy exhales a puff of smoke and shrugs, “I’ve always been good with the ladies, you know? You just gotta talk to them. Let them know you’re the real deal _._ ” 

“Gabriel here couldn’t convince a toad he’s the _real deal,_ ” Michael says, which earns him a punch to the shoulder. 

He doesn’t know how to tell them to just talk to them like they’re human beings, and he’s not going to admit that they’re really just going to the tailoring district to look at fabric samples because he’s got a good eye for quality and knows how to haggle but oh, well. 

The house doesn’t loom as it once did. Roy sees the crackling paint, the dirty counters, the smell of smoke. But it’s home now. He’s no longer afraid of the men that go in and out of his sisters’ rooms. Only repulsed, down to his bones. 

“Roy boy,” Claire says, hugging him close. He groans but hugs back, “You’ve gotten so tall!” She married her baker. Ben Meyer. He probably doesn’t know she still visits. She’s a little more rounded, a little better dressed, a little easier to smile. 

“Thanks,” he says, grinning. 

“Claire!” It’s Madam, hands on her hips, heartily laughing, “It’s been too long, girl!” 

“I know, I’m sorry!” She says, and then hefts bags over, “I got presents!” And she’s swarmed. Pastries, for everyone. Fabric. Sewing kits. Brooches. 

“And _this_ ,” She says to Roy, handing him something wrapped in brown paper, "is for _you_." 

He tears it open. 

_The Beginner’s Guide to Alchemy._

“I know you like books, so. Thought you’d like something about alchemy!”

“Thank you,” he says, hands tight around it, “It’s perfect.” 

Within two months, he’s done all the exercises in the book. He’s fixed most of the cracks in the home. He’s created toy figurines of soldiers in the school yard with the entire student body swarmed around him. Roy Mustang is now firmly the local Alchemist, and he’s not called _that Xingese boy_ to _anyone._

In a year, he’s gone through the entire section on Alchemy in their local library. The principal recommends that he find himself a mentor, and gives him a list of names. But he already has his eyes set on Berthold Hawkeye.

The Fire Tamer. 

—

Sopron is a small, sleepy town where he can feel the stares on his back but cannot trace them when he turns. Roy tightens the strap on his back and walks on outside the station. He’s fourteen and he’s away from home for the first time, and he’s never felt more.. Other. 

“Mr. Mustang?” 

He startles. Looks down. The girl’s calm, short, blond, her hair tied in a neat braid down her back. 

“Yes?” 

“I’m Elizabeth Hawkeye. My father sent me to pick you up.” 

Ah. He smiles and deftly shifts his bags to offer her his hand. “You can call me Roy.” 

Her handshake is firm. 

“Mister Mustang.” 

“...as you wish. What should I call you?” 

She looks struck, for a second. It’s the first obvious emotion she’s shown. She thinks for a second before murmuring, "Miss Hawkeye.” 

“Alright, Miss Hawkeye. Lead on.” 

She dresses and looks like a little girl, but Miss Hawkeye has a tired, purposeful walk he’s only seen in impoverished mothers. Not the swinging strut of his sisters, not the confident prowl of Madam, not the light skip of his classmates. A steady, measured plod of someone with an immense weight on her shoulders, and the care to mind her skirts. 

It’s unsettling.

And she doesn’t stare at him. Not even once. 

—

Berthold Hawkeye is a tall, broad-shouldered man with sunken cheeks and uncut hair. He takes one look at Roy and gruffs. That is the entirety of their first meeting. Next morning, he wakes at six, to a splash of water in his face. 

“Father wants you,” Miss Hawkeye says, “he doesn’t like tardiness.” 

Berthold asks him to do a simple exercise. Alright. He stops him before he’s finished the circle and says, “erase it and try again.” And he does it again. And again. And again. Roy performs _one_ transmutation after six hours of work, but by the end of the first day he can draw transmutation circles in his sleep.

By the end of the first month, he’s learnt far more than the tiny library in his neighbourhood could ever offer, and he’s learnt enough to realise that he knows _nothing._

—

“That colour suits you.” 

Hawkeye startles and turns, clutching the bolt of royal blue satin to her chest. 

“What are you _doing_ here?” 

“Came to call you. Lunch’s ready.” 

“You made lunch?” 

“Yes,” he says, “you were out shopping, so.” 

“Oh,” She looks unsure, “...thank you. That’s very kind.” 

“That’s a very pretty fabric. Got any designs in mind?” He’s a bit surprised, honestly, having only seen her in drab dull cotton and wool cut into practical, roomy dresses, or trousers now and then. 

“Father thinks fussing over dresses is silly.” 

“Ah,” he says, “so you don’t have.. Dress patterns?” 

“A couple.” 

“Hm,” he says, “I’m rather good at sewing dresses, you know. I have a lot of sisters. And they can probably send me the latest patterns from Central. If you’d like.” 

Hawkeye teases her lower lip for a second, as she often does while thinking, and then offers him the fabric, “okay.” 

“Any requests?”

And there’s that again, that startled look. 

She thinks for a moment.

“A long skirt. That goes round when I spin.” 

Elizabeth Hawkeye. The girl with the hard eyes who wants to twirl. 

—

Training starts at dawn and stretches past sunset, with breaks for meals. He’s exhausted. He eats with books open: _A Treatise on Modern Alchemy_ , _Equivalent Exchange: A Methodology_ , and even the dreaded _Organic and Metallurgical Alchemy_ , _fourth edition._

But after a week, a thick envelope comes from Claire, containing dress patterns, sewing needles in six sizes, a dozen spools of thread, and a letter gushing and demanding details about the _lucky girl, Roy, oh my god._

Two days in, he thinks he’s bitten off more than he can chew. He’s tired after training, and this dress pattern is way more complex than the basic ones he did for his sisters, and also the weave is too tight to twirl, so he's going to have to fix that.

Three days in, he’s doing it out of spite. He learns to transmute fabric, just enough to adjust the weave as he wishes. It’s more difficult than the bigger structures he makes, because the target is so small, and being a single degree off gives him just a spool of blue silk. It takes a month of pricked fingers and frustrated cries and straining in the dark of the attic but, finally, it’s done. 

The dress has a wide neckline with off-shoulder lacy straps that gather at the upper arms. The bodice is fitted, but there’s no corset, because Elizabeth doesn’t wear one. Right in the centre of the neckline he sewed on a filigree brooch he found in the market. And the skirt. The skirt is long, and light, the fabric flowing and pleated like a waterfall.

Roy’s knees ache, and his fingers are numb, and he has a mild headache. But he’s proud. 

He’s never been proud of any of his creations, before. He thought he was, but he now realises he only wanted the reaction of the audience. Pride is another feeling. 

“Miss Hawkeye!” She’s stirring stew in the kitchen. 

“I’m busy.” 

“Come _on._ ” 

“I’m _busy._ ” 

“Your dress is ready.” 

A pause. The click of a lid. 

“Okay," she says, undoing her apron, "let’s go.” 

“So!” He can’t see her. He has to raise it over his head to show it fully, “do you like it!” 

Elizabeth makes a noise. He lowers it. She’s crying, it’s barely noticeable. 

“Miss Hawkeye?” 

“I’m sorry, it’s,” She clears her throat, “it’s perfect. Can I wear it?” 

“That’s what it’s for.” 

He waits outside until she knocks on the door.

 _You’re so beautiful_ , he thinks. 

“Mister Mustang!” She says, embarrassed. 

He didn’t mean to say it out loud. Roy clears his throat. 

“Will you… spin for me?” 

And she does. And her skirt goes flying. And she’s smiling, and then laughing. He’s never seen her like that before. And that’s when Roy Mustang knows, deep in his bones, that’s all he wants. To see Elizabeth Hawkeye happy. 

—

He’s seventeen, and he’s kicked out. 

“I will not have the dogs of the military in my house,” Berthold says, crushing his letter of acceptance to the military academy in his hands, “I want you out by dawn.” 

“But, master, please,” Roy protests, “I will be dif—” 

“You will be a killer,” He says, tone final. “I will not harbour murderers. I am sorry I ever taught you. It is my greatest regret.” 

“You’ll change your mind.” 

Berthold gives him a look he knows all too well. It’s pure disgust. 

“Leave, Mustang. Now.” 

Elizabeth meets him in the station half an hour later, messily balancing large bags that contain the various knick-knacks he’s accumulated over the years. 

“You’re very kind, Miss Hawkeye.” 

“You left all your money behind in your dramatic fit.” 

“Yes, well,” he says, “I knew you’d end up pitying me.” 

She punches him in the shoulder. 

“Hey! What’s that for?” 

“I could’ve left you here, you know! Then you’d have had to swallow your ego and come back home. To get your things.” 

He laughs, and then looks at her. “Yes. You could have. I’m very grateful.” 

“He’s never going to teach you flame alchemy.” 

“I know.” 

“You’re not going to become a state alchemist.” 

“I know,” he sighs, “Oh, well. I’ll have to crawl up the ranks like a normal officer.” 

She doesn’t say a word. Roy offers her a slip of paper. 

“It’s the address of the academy, and the address of my home in Central,” He says, “Will you… write to me?” He says, “please?” 

She takes it, after a few moments of consideration. “Okay.” 

—

The six months between being kicked out and the fall semester of the military academy, Roy has something he hasn’t had since he was a child: free time. Or rather, the free hours, in between the chores Madam has him do. There’s the usual ones, shopping, haggling, budgeting. And there’s the expected but new ones: he accompanies his sisters to the jobs, making sure to perform alchemy offhandedly, just so the “customers” know who they’re dealing with. He stands quiet and smokes as menacingly as he can, and, honestly, other than the one time he’d had to throw a punch, it’s fun. 

And then there’s the ones he can no longer make sense of. Madam sends him off to embassies with small packages, makes him memorise cryptic cheesy poetry which when he puts down to paper, he can decode into dates and times and locations. 

“Madam,” he asks her finally, “What exactly do you do?” 

She laughs heartily and exhales a puff, waving around her long cigarette holder, “Roy boy,” she says, “You’ll get to know in all good time. Now, be a good boy and recite McCain’s confession again, make sure you don’t get anything wrong.” They’ve moved to a property in a more respectable neighbourhood, which means they’re now avoided by people in slightly better clothes and the police leaves them alone. 

Claire’s pregnant. He knits yellow booties for the baby and she pulls him into a hug and ruffles his hair. Roy’s decided, finally, that Ben isn’t a jackass, only shy, because he sends him off with a bag of cookies and says “for the girls.” 

There’s a man waiting when he comes back, hands full and shutting the backdoor with his feet and Roy knows he isn’t a customer, because he has a cup of coffee and is talking to Madam like they’re old friends. 

“Roy! Just the man we’ve been waiting fo—”

The man gasps. “You’re so tall!” 

“He’s going to the military academy in the fall. And he’s a trained alchemist.” 

“No way,” the man says, beaming at him, “I knew he’d be better off at Central. Look at him. An _officer._ ” 

“I won’t be an officer until I graduate,” he says, embarrassed. “Who are you?” 

“Harker. Jonathan Harker.” 

“He’s my brother, from Colmar,” Madam says, “He’s the man who brought you to me.” 

Harker, along with his family, moved to Central a month ago after Madam managed to get his wife a job as a lady’s maid, and him as a chauffeur. He has Sundays off, and Madam says he can take him to see his mother. If Roy wishes. 

“I don’t. I never saw her.” 

“I think you should go.” 

“Madam. My family is here.” 

That night he does something he hasn’t in years. He looks at his eyes in the mirror and pushes and pulls at the skin. 

Roy keeps saying no, until the military academy is only a week away, and he can’t sleep. He stares off into the darkness of his room, until blue sunlight filters in through the window. 

“I want to see her.” 

“Your ticket’s on the desk.” 

The train ride’s nine hours long, and in that time they travel through decades. Houses space out and become smaller, until they’re just unending fields dotted with hutments, then fields space out, until it’s just barren land dotted with green. Theirs is the last stop. The station’s tiny. 

“This isn’t Colmar.” 

“No,” Harker says, “It’s an hour by horse.” 

Colmar’s basically deserted. A hot, dry village of shuttered shops and curtainless houses. They trot up the gentle slope until they reach the peak, where there’s a church that’s still maintained, all things considered, and a graveyard. 

“Father McCullen!” 

“Harker!” the old man smiles, and stops watering the flowers, “You missed service!” 

“Yeah, yeah, the boy was stubborn,” he says, slapping Roy’s back, “Remember him?” The priest walks up to his horse and peers up, and then his eyes widen. 

“...Roy, isn’t it?” He says, “Christmas’ lad.” 

“You remember me?” 

“Memory like a trap,” he says, tapping his temple, “And I keep in touch with her.” 

Roy’s never been recognised before. It’s an odd feeling. 

“He’s here to see his mother.” 

“Ah, of course,” the priest says, “I’ve been waiting.” They follow the priest on foot, weaving past gravestones, into the plots of clearing where there is an abrupt switch frome _names_ to _posts_. Just anonymous white posts, evenly spaced. One of them, Roy thinks, is his mother. 

“I remember her,” he says, “We buried her just beside the willow tree.” 

The grave looks like any other. Roy stands there, unmoving. 

“We’ll leave you to it,” The priest says. He and Harker leave. 

Roy sighs. He touches the side of the wooden post. 

“Hello, mummy,” He says, “It’s—it’s Roy. I’m going to the military academy soon. I,” He breathes, again, exhales hard, “I’ll make you proud.” 

The ride back is silent. Harker falls asleep against the window. Roy watches the countryside pass. 

—

He’s eighteen, and he’s an outsider, and he can no longer steal convenient cigarettes and alcohol from Madam to become popular. Nor can he easily sail to the top, or talk back to the professors. A month at the Military Academy and he’s still sitting alone in the cafeteria, book open as he eats so he doesn’t have to confront that fact. 

Well. 

Maybe it’s time he tries the technique of ‘keeping your head down’. 

“Ha ha, it’s a fucking Ishvalan,” another cruel laugh. The sound of toppled books. “Don’t apologise!” 

Or not. 

A fist fight later, on the track as they do the rounds they’re punished for, Roy learns his name is Heathcliff. They sit together. 

A semester of petty competition, a viciously fought for spot at the top of the class, and _another_ fist fight later, their little table gains another member. Maes Hughes. Elizabeth sends him letters, infrequently and unexpectedly, and keeps them short and unsentimental. 

.

_Mister Mustang,_

_I learnt how to use the dress patterns you left. Father’s health is worsening. He is still angry at you. My goat, Pauline, foaled and now we can get fresh milk. The strawberries this season are sweet._

_Yours,_

_Elizabeth Hawkeye._

_._

_Mister Mustang,_

_I passed my matriculation exams. I had to take a train to Odette because they don’t hold them in Sopron for so few students. My goat, Pauline, fell into a ravine and had to be put down. I made stew from her. We still have two of her foals left. Father says he doesn’t want to say hello. I think he’s lying._

_Yours,_

_Elizabeth Hawkeye._

_._

_Mister Mustang,_

_We went to Central last week. It was crowded and loud. I wanted to go to the address you left but father paled the moment I mentioned it so I did not. I have gathered it is a brothel. I tried alcohol. It was bitter. I do not think I will again._

_Yours,_

_Elizabeth Hawkeye._

He keeps them all pressed into a journal, careful not to crumple the paper. His replies are at least three pages long, describing the academy and Heathcliff and Hughes and his trips in the city and all the trouble he gets to, in excruciating detail, and take him at least two days to compose. One time, Maes plucks one of her letters, shouting, _Roy! how dare you not tell me you have a girlfriend, after all we have been through, after all the times I’ve asked, after all the times I’ve discussed my own future girlfriend and wife to you, she’s the one you keep writing to, isn’t she, I can recognise feminine handwriting from a mile away,_ and Heathcliff takes it from him. Roy expects he will return it, but he just gives him a wicked smile, and reads the thing. 

Heathcliff’s expression slowly morphs from giddiness to confusion. 

“...here you go, Mustang,” He snatches it from his fingers, and sticks out his tongue, “Uh, your girl isn’t a chatty one, is she?” 

“Christ, what did it _say_?” 

“That her potatoes died because of a pest and one of her goats is pregnant.” 

“Oh, no,” Roy says, genuinely struck, “after she worked so hard on planting them.” 

Maes and Heathcliff burst out laughing. 

A letter comes in the dead of winter. The envelope is crushed. The handwriting is uneven and shaky. There’s no salutation. It simply reads: 

_My name is Riza._

_Yours,_

_Riza H._

Roy tears off the first piece of paper he says and hastily scrawls that he’s worried, that he will take the first train to Sopron if she asks, that she can stay with Claire if she wishes, that she has a nice house in Central, that her children are friendly, and that she please, _please_ , tell him what is wrong. 

She never replies. 

Roy doesn’t sleep easy for a long time. 

—

A week after they enter the final semester, all Ishvalan students are expelled. Internal security. The situation in Ishval is getting too tense. 

He, Maes, and Heathcliff decide to have one last dinner at the little coffee shop in the village. The patron keeps giving him and Heathcliff nervous glances. Roy wonders when it got so bad. 

— 

Roy Mustang’s twenty-one and he graduates into war.

— 

He’s at the top of his class, he’s offered the rank of captain, but he accepts a post of a third lieutenant in the consignments office at Central. 

“Roy” Maes says, “Three years of competition, just to become a paper pusher in an office?” 

Roy smiles. 

“Ah, you still don’t trust me!” He says, “I have a plan.” 

Maes scoffs, “You and your plans.” 

— 

The first leave he gets, he takes a train to Sopron. The village is mostly unchanged. Deep in the hinterland, lacking any tactical value, or young men, even war itself doesn’t seem to touch its sleepy porches. 

“No.” 

“There’s a _war_ —” 

“I KNOW ALL ABOUT YOUR WAR—” Berthold breaks off into a coughing fit. Riza pats his back, and stares at him helplessly. 

It’s the first time he’s seen her, in three years. She’s taller. She’s filled out, without the awkward unfinished planes of childhood. It’s so strange, that a woman returns his gaze, when he’s still the boy who wanted to make a little girl smile. 

“I can save lives!”

“You want to be a dog of the military!” He cries out, “You’re a murderer! You will _never_ , ever—not my research—it’s too dangerous—” Cough. Sputter. Gasp. 

“Mister Mustang,” Riza says, “I think it’s best if you leave.” 

“But, I—”

“Please,” She says, “I’ll drop you off at the station.”

“Okay.” 

—

It’s hard not to be reminded of the last time they were here. 

“Can I ask you something, Miss Hawkeye?” 

“Yes?”

“Why did you stop writing me?” 

She walks on. “Things change,” She says. Stops. Checks her watch. “Your train will be here in ten minutes.” 

“Yes.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

He shrugs, “I’ll figure out a way. I think I’ll pass the state alchemist exam even without flame alchemy.”

“You’re arrogant.” 

Roy grins. “You know me.” 

“Give me your address.”

“What?”

“Your address at central.” 

He’s already taking out a notebook. He’s been assigned a small flat on Bay Street. “Will you write?” 

“No, I,” The loud whistle of steam. The train’s early. “Wait for me. Roy! Please. Wait for me!” 

He hurriedly scratches on his address as they’re inundated with exiting passengers. “Of course!” he says, “Always!” 

—

There’s a knock at the door a week later, just as he’s about to leave for work. 

It’s Riza. 

“I suspected you’d be late,” She says, “Good thing too, I would’ve been stranded for eight hours.” 

“Miss Hawkey—” 

“I need to nap for six hours.” 

“Bedroom’s right over there,” he says, “It’s messy. Sorry.” 

“It’s okay, I suspected that too.” 

“Did you come all the way here just to insult me?!” 

“No!” She says, from the bedroom, “to make you a state alchemist!” 

—

For a long moment, Roy’s silent. 

“Are you cold?” he says, “Here, you can-you can use my jacket,” and offers her his dark blazer, which she winds around her front. On her back, from her nape to her hip, is an extensive transmutation array, with detailed coded marginalia, probably explaining the intricacies of flame alchemy, of deconstruction of air and water into its components, and the science of turning that into flame. 

“Can I touch you?” 

“Yeah.” 

He traces the twin entwining serpents first, and then the first set of notes. Roy draws a breath, sharp. God, it must’ve hurt. It must’ve taken hours. This isn’t an alchemic scroll he’s reading, he has to remind itself. This is Riza. This is his friend. 

“I think it’ll be easiest if I trace it as is,” He says, “I can separate the diagram and the notes later.” 

She shrugs. 

“Talk to me.”

“Fine.” 

“Miss Hawkeye,” He says, “Tell me when you want to stop, okay? For whatever reason.” 

Riza laughs. 

“I don’t want to stop until you can turn Central to ash,” She says, “This is the last thing my father wants. So it’s yours. In totality.” 

Roy adds a couple more logs to the flame, and gets to work. It takes two hours to trace every bend and letter, but as the clock ticks to one am, he has a spread. 

“All done.” 

“Okay,” Riza says, yawning. 

“You should go to bed,” He says, “I’m gonna stay up a little bit longer and try to decode some of this. I’ll take the couch.” 

He’s still at his desk when the sun comes up. He’s not any closer to an answer. 

—

Riza’s dressed and walking out. Where… where is she going? 

“I didn’t lie to my father about the secretarial course, Mister Mustang.” 

Oh. Right. She mentioned something about a course, and paying someone to look after Berthold. 

God, his head hurts. 

“You’re going to be late, you know. Again.” 

“I _know_ , I know,” He smiles, “Make me a coffee too?” 

She’s in the building a few blocks away from the consignments office, where he’s increasingly arranging this meeting and that meeting and that request not only for Christmas, but for himself. Her web makes sense to him now, and he can predict where its latest silk thread will land, and where it will find secure footing. 

Increasingly, he’s looking into creating one of his own. 

In the off time, he’s still scrabbling into the notebook, mechanically trying out the most common of cypher codes, expecting not an answer but the satisfaction of crossing it out. 

She’s supposed to be done at four. He decides to pick her up, worried she’ll be lost. 

“Are you Mustang?” says the receptionist.

“Yes.” 

“Miss Hawkeye left a note for you.” 

It says: at Claire’s. 

—

“Roy!” She hugs her, and he stumbles back. Claire’s twenty seven, a mother, and gives hard hugs. She and Ben, her husband, live in a small flat above Meyer’s that smells perpetually of oven-fresh bread and yeast. 

“I can’t believe _she’s_ finally here,” She says, in an excited whisper, “And you better marry that girl, Mustang.” 

Roy winces. “Please don’t tell me you’ve mentioned that to her.” 

“Now, why in the world would I—” 

“Uncle Roy!” Michaela says, already three, shooting herself at Roy, who picks her up and twirls her around. “Gift! Gift!” 

Girl knows her priorities. 

Roy makes a great show of looking in his pockets, like he’s lost it, or forgot, until she gets impatient, at which point he drags out a little stuffed cat he’d bought on the way. And transmuted bat wings on. 

“It’s so cute!!” She says, holding it in both hands and tugging at the wings, “M’ gonna name it Batty-Catty.” 

Roy smiles, and puts her down. “It’s a great name.”

Riza’s sitting on the couch, bouncing little baby Chrissy on her lap, gently moving her tiny arm. The baby giggles. Riza smiles. Something aches inside Roy, something very deep. 

Claire comes in with a tray of tea and biscuits, and sidles up beside Roy. “He’s told me so much about you.” 

“Oh?” She bounces the baby, “All good things?” 

Ensnared, would be the right word. A mouse in the coils of a snake. 

“I always did wonder, how the dress turned out, he told me it was perfect, but we all know he has a tendency to—” 

“Chrissy’s growing up so fast!” Roy says, “Look, she can already… sit! That’s very advanced for her age!” 

They both look at him, for a moment. And then back at each other. 

“It was beautiful,” Riza says, “But I never really got to wear it much because I was saving it for something special and then I outgrew it.” 

“Pity,” Claire says, taking Chrissy into her lap, who’s reaching out to her, “We should enjoy beautiful things while we can, however often we can. Because they make things special, not the other way around.”

They leave with two armfuls of bread and pastries and hugs from Claire and Michaela and Chrissy and Ben, with verbal promises to visit soon. 

“She’s nice.” 

“She really is.” 

“How long were you there before I arrived?” 

“About half an hour.” 

“I see.” 

“She cares about you a lot.” 

“I know.” 

They move in comfortable silence. 

“Did you really tell her that you’d marry me when you were fourteen—”

“Riza, I will walk into traffic.” 

—

The first thing he does when they return home is to transmute her a set of keys. “Now you’ll never be stranded.” 

—

He stirs awake around noon the next day, Saturday, and is greeted by Madam. 

“Finally decided to wake up?” 

Roy narrows his eyes. They say _I know what you’re doing_. Sure enough, Madam’s drinking tea with Riza. He had heard laughter in the hallway. It’s noon. Madam has brought his baby photos, and it is all he can do not shut himself in. Instead, he brews some more tea, and scrambles some eggs, glad to have an excuse to be in earshot but far enough to pretend he doesn’t hear them. They talk about his childhood, and Riza tells him bits about his training, and then ask some questions about the ‘job’ which Christmas handles candidly. He can imagine her passive face, masking embarrassment. 

“She’s a good woman,” Madam says, as he helps her shrug on her coat, “Beautiful, too.” 

“Claire’s already given me the get married talk.” 

“Roy,” She holds his arm, “It is a myth, that we can have it all. It is a lie we tell children,” She says, “Think hard where your path leads you, before you embark.” 

Roy looks out the window. “Let me walk you to the station.” 

—

The weekend is spent mostly pouring over notes and endless cups of coffee. Eventually, he ends up creating two copies of everything on loose paper, so Riza too can help. It’s useless, he can feel it, he’s just looking at words, not taking anything in. His attention is focused _across_ the pages, anyway. She’s cut her hair, and it sticks out at all angles. It looks soft. He wants to run his hands across it. 

Roy clears his throat. 

“Lunch? I know a nice restaurant.” 

“God, please,” She says, “If I have to read the word _roftewu_ again, I will lose my mind.” 

—

It’s been a week. Nearly all the walls in the living room are taped over with paper, red thread connecting pages across panels and the room, the furniture’s been pushed aside. 

They’re still nowhere. 

But Roy’s fixed up a broken record player he found on the flea market, and Riza’s bought a few records from a second-hand store, and in the evenings they play the same five jaunty tunes full of flutes and pianos, and her hip’s firm in his hand, and their steps are in synch, and maybe nowhere is an alright place to be. 

—

It gets hot, and it gets hot fast. At least that’s the excuse Roy offers as to his constant state of undress in the flat, to which Riza simply rolls her eyes, but he can feel her gaze, warm as the summer sun, on his back when he turns. 

—

They’re dancing. They’ve cut the strings that connect a set of runes with a set of code, because they got in the way. 

“You’ve gotten so much better.” 

She laughs, “ _You_ were the one stepping on my toes.” 

“Hey!” He protests, “That was one time!” And he lifts her by the waist, just to prove how good he is, and she squeals, and he plants her close, and doesn’t let go. 

Riza kisses him. Or maybe Roy kisses her. Either way, their mouths are pressed together, and their bodies are too, hungry. Starved. Seeking each other like moths to flames, and almost as close to combustion. 

“I love you,” Roy says, head between her thighs and his mouth and chin glistening, “God, how I love you.” 

“I kn _ow,_ ” Riza says, panting, dragging her nails across his back , the blood beading like jewels. 

“I love you too,” She says, when he thrusts in and kisses her she can taste herself on his lips.

—

It’s late. 

Her skin’s golden in the parallel bars of sunlight on her back. Roy touches her, his fingers light as a moth. Riza looks soft, but her flesh has very little give, all hard muscle underneath tanned skin. He sighs, and presses his palm against the dip of her spine, flat against the central transmutation circle. 

Riza stirs. 

“Wh’tme.” 

“Ah, late. Very late.” She tenses, for a second, and then relaxes. Uncaring. Roy kisses her nape and squeezes her breast, just ‘cause he can. 

“You’re gonna get fired.” 

“Uh-huh,” he snuggles closer, and presses more kisses where she’s ticklish, only to be swatted. 

“I’m serious! And then we’ll be homeless.” 

“We can stay with Claire. I can scrub floors.” 

“You know, all problems in the world,” She gasps. His fingers have wandered down where she’s still wet, “Cannot be solved by just ‘going to Claire’s’”

“Ys they cn,” It’s muffled against her back. Roy rubs and squeezes until Riza cannot think, cannot speak, only shudder in his arms. 

“Make a noise for me” Roy says, when she’s on edge, and bites her shoulder, “C’mon.” 

She comes with a breathy _Roy._

At three pm, they’re still in bed, still naked, eating two day old croissants from Claire’s. Riza brushes crumbs from herself and lays belly down to read, her ankles crossed in the air, just above her hips. Roy looks at her body, unabashed, and strokes her side. 

Pauses. 

“What?” She says, “I can feel you staring.” 

“Your tattoo,” Her muscles tense.

“It’s a mirrored.” 

— 

It unravels quickly after that. 

—

“Are you sure this is safe?” Says Riza, armed with a fire extinguisher. 

Roy stands, legs shoulder width apart, a flint lighter in hand, “Yeah. I’ll just transmute the smallest amount of air possible.” 

She nods. 

“Ready?”

“Ready.” 

A tiny click, a tiny flash. A pillar of flame that singes off Roy’s eyebrows in the three seconds it takes Riza to extinguish it. 

“Uh—” 

“Oh my god,” Roy says, “Oh my god!” He tackles her in a hug and twirls her around, laughing. She looks at the scorch marks on the ceilings and sighs. 

—

“You look like an idiot.” 

“I’ll fill them in with charcoal, c’mon.” 

“Well,” She says, “No kisses until you do.” 

“Your eyes are closed!”

“Nope!” 

—

There’s an empty lot on their block. That’s where they practice, in the evenings. First with just raw flames, then with the spoiled produce they get at cut rates from the local grocers as targets. The flames just get bigger and bigger at first, and then smaller, and then _precise_. Surgical strikes. 

Precision has always been his strong suit, after all. 

The lighter is too unwieldy. So is the transmutation circle, with its delicate flame runes. Roy transmutes flint and cotton into a fabric, and they spend nights stitching it into gloves. 

Almost a month after they first decode the tattoo, Roy feels ready. 

—

He passes the exam. The written test was basic, the practical portion left rows of singed eyebrows and scorched ceilings and even (which he’s assured is quite rare), a very faint applause. Madame Christmas throws him a party. For one evening, the house is closed. Claire’s there, with Ben and the kids. There’s cake. There’s food. There’s music. He kisses Riza in nearly every convenient shadow. It’s her last night in Central. 

Afterwards, Madame calls him into his office, and, _finally_ , lays out her whole web, the information streaming in from all corners of Amestris, all the hubs in central, in the east, in the west, and the surprising amount of connections that fall at the heart of Meyer's bakery.

"What?" Madam puffs out smoke, "You thought our Claire just minds the shop and the kids?" 

—

The very first thing Major Roy Mustang buys with his state alchemist salary is a gold ring with the largest ruby he’s ever seen. 

The second is a ticket to Sopron, a week later, after a letter from Riza telling him that Berthold had died. 

—

“You’re going to Ishval?” 

“Yes,” He says, “I haven’t received my orders yet. But it is certain I am.” They’re at her father’s grave. The funeral was sparsely attended. The culmination of a lifetime of burnt bridges. 

“Why?” 

“Because there’s a—” 

“No,” She looks at him, “Why this? Why join the army? Why this desperation to be a state alchemist?” 

“Because..” He trails off, and takes as second to collect his thoughts. “Because there’s something broken,” he thinks of the soldiers, bullying their way into Madam’s house, daylight robbery under the guise of ‘protection’, of Heathcliff, “in our country, and I intend to fix it.” He thinks about the half-abandoned village close to the eastern border, about the rows and rows of buildings with shaky foundations, about all the times he’s been asked to show ‘his papers’, even in uniform, even with his colleagues. “And I can only do that if I’m powerful. Becoming a state alchemist seemed the quickest way.” 

“Okay.” 

He laughs, a little nervous, trying to diffuse the situation. “You probably think it’s too naïve.” 

“No. Not at all,” She says. He's surprised. “I believe you.” 

Roy makes her tea and some sandwiches while she bathes and changes. When she returns, there’s a tray waiting for her, with food, and a red velvet box. 

“Roy?” He’s watching birds through the window, “Roy, what is this?”

“I won’t ask. Not yet. Not until I can give you some certainty,” He says, finally turning, “But I want you to keep it. I want… I want you to wait for me, if you can.” 

She’s holding the box in her palm, unopened. 

“Perhaps it should be me asking you to wait,” She says, “With your history.” 

Roy sits beside her. “Riza,” he says, and takes her hand, “Riza, I’ve never—it’s been you. Only you. My first, my last, my everything.

Riza pauses, for a long time, and then.

“Wait.” 

She rushes inside and returns a minute later with her hair out of place. 

“I want you to have this,” It’s a delicate silver chain, with an oval pendant. 

“What is it?” 

“It was my mother’s,” She says, “Keep it. As a promise.” 

Roy slips the chain in his breast pocket, right above his heart, “I will.” 

—

She doesn’t wait. 

—

Ishval isn’t what he imagined, and it isn’t what it said on his orders: de-escalation, containment. 

It’s slaughter, at every stage. 

At first, it’s because they’re shooting, so he sends his squadron inside and whips out his gloves and sets the world on fire. Then it’s because they’re resisting. Then it’s because they exist. At night, he barely sleeps, a hand tight over Riza’s pendant, his own lofty words mocking him. 

Heathcliff. 

Heathcliff is. 

He buries his half-charred body with his own hands, shoulder still bleeding, in the courtyard of the ashes that was once his family home. He’d shown him photos, once, a lifetime ago. Of the happy toddler on the swings. Of his sister with her rows of carrots. 

Heathcliff Erbe is someone Roy Mustang will never manage to atone. 

—

And then she’s here. 

Riza.

Third-lieutenant Hawkeye. 

The Hawk’s Eye.

The deadliest sniper in military history. 

— 

She looks taller, and she wears a black tunic because the shirt sleeves strain over her shoulders. Gone is the gentle swish of her hips he once knew so well, and the easy smiles, and the kind eyes. This Riza Hawkeye is a stranger with the face of a killer. 

And so, Roy supposes, is he. 

He’s twenty four, and he can no longer love. 

He’s twenty four, and he can no longer be loved. 

—

Riza saves him by shooting a man from half a mile away. Roy saves her by turning enemy forces to ash. They’re a team that works without words, that kill like it’s a dance. They’re moved up the ranks and around Ishval, quickly and together. 

They sleep at the most five feet apart and never reach for each other at night. 

—

It’s raining.

“He’s useless in this weather,” Hawkeye says, cocking her gun, “It’ll be best if we simply hold the tower and wait for further orders.” She knows he can perform hydrolysis and rain hellfire down on the village in the valley that’s housing fighters in their basements. She doesn’t tell. She doesn’t need to be told not to tell. 

“Aw, lieutenant, you wound me,” He says, “I can roast us whatever game you kill.” 

His soldiers whoop. They sit for two days as the water pours and eat roasted pheasant and rabbit and trade stories and he tells them about Central but not about Hawkeye, and Hughes chimes in about all the pranks they pulled in the Academy, and quietly erases Heathcliff. 

Riza only silently cleans her rifle, unresponsive to prompts, until she drops, “Major-Colonel Armstrong had me transferred because we slept together,” during an innocent pause in conversation, leaving them all stunned. 

It’s night. Maes is gently snoring. “Did you really—”

“Have sex with Armstrong?” She whispers. “Yes. Why would I lie?” 

“Just confirming.” 

“Are you jealous?” 

“No! Of course not.” A pause. “A little bit, maybe.” 

“Good.” 

“Did you tell her about me?” 

“Yeah,” She says, finally turning. Her features are soft in the moonlight. “She really doesn’t like you, you know.” 

“Oh, I’m well aware,” he says, “But I just assumed it was why the _rest_ of the brass doesn’t like me, either. I never considered it would be because of you.” 

“Well, now you know.”

“It’s unfair that everyone thinks that I’m the playboy,” Roy says, “When you’re the one leaving a trail of broken hearts.” 

She laughs, and squeezes his hand. 

The sky is a brilliant blue in the morning. He razes the village to the ground, and she shoots from the tower all who manage to escape his fire. 

—

They kill and transfer. He works with fellow state alchemists he’s never seen before, always the youngest, always ignored in a way that has nothing to do with his age, until he earns their respect in charred corpses. 

“Oh, I thought they kicked them off with the Isvhalans,” Kimblee says. 

Riza acts like she’s checking the freshly cleaned scope of her rifle, but her muzzle’s pointed at Kimblee’s heart. “You got something to say?” 

He blinks, smiles, deferentially raises his hands and takes a few steps back. 

—

Roy finally sees Olivier Armstrong in person. 

All he gets is a sneer and barked orders and a small speech about respecting and cultivating one’s subordinates. 

He realises that he’s got allies. 

—

They receive orders to travel to the central city. They go. 

It’s different, this time. Usually they travel in packs of ten or twenty, two state alchemists at the max, but now… he sees Armstrong, he sees Kimblee, he sees the Freezing Alchemist, Iron Blood, Basque Grande. They’re all here. 

So is the Führer. 

He stands tall in the front, arms resting on the hilt of his sword. 

“Soldiers!” His voice rings out into the open air. He raises his blade. “This is the final push!” 

—

Picture. 

Swathes and swathes of crumbling villages, long abandoned. Picture their basements, filled with those who escaped the destruction of their homes, their families. Picture the wounded. The mothers, the children. 

Picture it no more. 

—

He can’t find Hawkeye. 

Roy does a rough headcount of his unit, at the end of each day, ever since the slaughter began. They know to gather in a pre-decided spot, or be in the medical tent. Today, the last day, he can’t find Riza. He waited for an hour, but now the sun is set, the camp fires are lit, and she’s nowhere. 

He asks around, panic clawing up his gut with each minute, half his mind already in the battle field with a search party combing through the limbs, when he sees it. The church turret, with the three-sixty-degree view. 

He sees her outline in the stained glass. She’s sitting quietly on her knees, back hunched, a pistol held loosely in her hand. 

“Hawkeye.” 

“I never wanted this.” Barely a murmur. 

“Hawkeye.” 

“I thought—I thought I’d help people. I thought I’d follow you and change our country.” 

He takes a step. 

“No, stay back,” Her head jerks up, dull hair falling into dead eyes. Presses the muzzle to her temple. “You shouldn’t have come.” 

“Riza, please,” His knees tremble, “put the gun down.” 

“I’d hoped you wouldn’t see th-is,” Her voice cracks, “They wouldn’t have shown you the body, I wrote it down, I didn’t want you to see—” 

He’s crying. He hasn’t cried since he was a little boy, not since they called him _Xingi_ and flung a ball at his head. 

“Riza, please, I—”

“I said STAND BACK!” The gun shakes in her hand. “Major. Turn around.” 

“I can’t.” 

“Turn around, Major!” She screams, “ _Please_.” 

“I will _not_!” He spreads out his arms, makes himself the biggest target possible, “You want to shoot someone, Hawkeye, shoot me, I brought you here, I turned you into who you are. Kill me, and consider your sins atoned.” 

“You did not bring me here.” 

“I might as wel—”

“You _arrogant prick_!” she says, limbs vibrating with anger, “My life does not fucking revolve around you! _I_ came here, _I_ killed all those people, and now I-I—”

“You will kill yourself.” 

She stills, and then deflates.

“It’s what I deserve.” 

“It’s what we all deserve,” he takes a step, “But they’re not going to shoot themselves,” another step, “Kimblee,” another, “Basque Grand,” another. Their chests almost touch. “Führer Bradley. They won’t conveniently commit suicide.” 

That’s when Riza breaks, but he’s quicker, grabs her wrist and twists it up and the bullet goes straight into the ceiling. She weeps in his grasp, begging him to let her go. 

“I’ll bring them to justice, Riza,” He says, “I promise you. They’ll be held accountable for their war crimes. And so will we.” 

“You can’t—you can’t promise me that.” 

“I am,” He squeezes her wrist tighter, forces her to look at him, “I _am_. And the moment you think I will falter, that I will fail, that I am shirking my duty, it is your job to put a bullet through my skull and then no one will stop you from doing the same.” 

She’s silent for a few moments, and falls into a heap. The gun clatters to the floor, he kicks it aside, and holds her. She asks that he burn the ink off her back. He agrees. At night, he sneaks into her tent and if anyone notices they look away, and he pulls her to his chest and says that one day, when all this is over, he’ll buy them that tiny flat on Bay Street and they’ll put on the records and dance in the evenings again, and he takes off the necklace and links it around her neck and says, _see, I promise._

She doesn’t correct him. 

—

“Maes,” he says, looking right at Bradley who’s just finished his victory speech, “I have a plan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to my AMAZING beta agentcalliope. i literally love her. please check out jiu. i have already finished this fic and I PROMISE there will be a chapter every week! no more abandoned WIPs! there IS a fluffy happy ending. 
> 
> comments are literally love! tell me what u think! and by the way, i picture claire and ben as that baking couple from kiki's delivery service :)
> 
> my tumblr is @bauliya! you can come chat, please. i love anons.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Ishval.

He burns her in that church turret. She stands, shirtless, back facing him. It’s been years, since he saw it in the flesh. The catalyst of their lives.

“Can I touch?”

She barks a laugh.

He traces its lines for the last time. The upper right corner is the key to the whole thing, so that’s his target. He won’t burn a centimetre more than he has to.

Roy Mustang takes a step back and snaps his fingers.

—

Riza doesn’t scream. He takes her to the medical tent, both of them silent. The medics shoot him dirty looks. A few internal affairs officials lingering around his tent for days after.

—

Roy’s twenty five and he’s lieutenant-colonel with enough medals to weigh down his jacket, and post at Eastern Command. They let him choose his staff. He pours over the CV’s and carefully picks his pieces.

—

The Command Centre is three hours away from Colmar, by horse. He decides to see his mother again. It’s been entirely too long.

He expects an abandoned village, with a few old people and children here and there.

He finds a bustling, quickly transforming military base. Tanks and jeeps drive across, young men hammer away on scaffolding, officers watching from below. His eyes drag up the gentle slope, to where the church was, the graveyard, and—

It’s a flat squat building and tents.

He grabs the first soldier he sees.

“I’m Colonel Mustang, the Flame Alchemist,” he says, “Take me to your CO.”

Brigadier-General Monroe’s a tall man with a sunken chest and a paunch, who smiles at him and puffs smoke like a chimney. Two of his teeth are gold.

“At ease, Colonel,” He says, leaning back, steepling his fingers, grin obscene, “Now, what has my little outpost done to warrant such illustrious guests, eh? The _Flame Alchemist_ himself.”

“General Grumman wanted me to familiarise myself with all the outposts in the eastern sector,” He says, “Sir.”

“Bet it’s not as fancy as the Eastern Command Centre.”

“It’s certainly… rustic, sir.”

He laughs.

“Can I ask a question?”

“Of course, my boy.”

“I’d.. been here before. There used to be a church. And a graveyard. What happened to it?”

Monroe frowns, clearly not expecting it. He scratches his head. “I think the church was too structurally unsound during the war so we blew it up. As for the graveyard… that was just an empty lot.”

“There were _people_ buried there.” Mustang digs his nails into his palms. Smiles placatingly. “Sir.”

“Oh, people no one wanted,” He waves his hands, “Outlaws and petty criminals. Foreigners.”

“I see.”

“Not that I have an issue with foreigners! None like you, certainly, Mr. State Alchemist.”

“Noted.”

“What are you, anyway? Between friends? I mean, of course, you’re Amestrian, but—”

“Between friends, sir?” He says, “I am _late_. Grumman expects me back by sundown.”

“Works you hard, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

In the evening, there’s a small fire in the kitchens. They evacuate. Protocol.

And once they are empty, every tent and every shed and every building on the Colmar outpost is set ablaze.

—

For someone who prides himself on having his fingers in all of the pies, it’s a bit insulting that he didn’t know.

“Grumman’s your _grandfather?_ ”

“It’s not a _big deal_ , sir,” Riza says, huffily stacking files.

“Whatever you say,” Roy leans back against his bench, “ _Lady_ Hawkeye.”

She doesn’t react.

“Or do you prefer Marchioness?”

“Do _you_ prefer jackass, sir?”

—

There’s a summer gala at Brenthan Hall, General Grumman’s ancestral seat. It’s an informal event, which means it’s compulsory but you can’t get away with wearing your uniform. Roy loves it. It’s an excuse to buy a tux he’d been eyeing for a couple weeks, with the white silk scarf that goes around his neck.

Riza’s irritated.

“The skirt’s too long,” She says, shifting., squirming The red silk twirls a bit. “I can’t reach the gun easily.” It’s strapped to her thigh, no doubt.

“Do you want me to add a slit?” He says, eyes a little wide, “Because I can add a slit.”

“Let’s just get in the car, sir.”

The mansion’s huge, all well kept lawns and pale pillars and low, wide, marble stairs. Roy cheesily offers his arm, and Riza actually takes it.

He watches the couples stream in, old soldiers with their jewel-encrusted wives, blushing young couples still glowing with their honeymoon period. _We blend in_ , he thinks. _Just this one night, we can be other people._

Roy’s been to military galas before, something this one pointedly isn’t. The little circles on the dance floor are split up according to lineage, not ranks. The old gentry clashes hard with the new military rule, all against a backdrop of wine and violin.

He’s not welcome here.

“Oh,” Riza’s face is soft, “It’s just as I remember.”

“When were you last here?”

“When I was nine,” she says, dragging her palm the curving balustrade of a marble staircase, “I used to slide down this railing all the time, until I fell on my face and broke my nose.”

“Riza!” It’s a woman with dark hair and an easy smile in a flowy white and pink dress.

“Rebecca!” They hug, and hold hands, and she excitedly patters on about fresh prawns kept alive in actual tanks and fried up on the spot, until she notices him finally and gives a wink. Roy smiles, a little tight.

“Would you mind awfully if I take her?” She says, “There’s some people I absolutely must introduce her to!”

“Roy—”

“All yours,” He says, cheery, grabbing a flute of champagne and raising it. Rebecca gives a two finger salute and drags her off.

The balcony’s large, and cool.

“Aren’t you always the life of the party?”

“Not tonight,” he says, snapping his fingers to offer her a light, “Lady Armstrong.”

Oliver groans. “Not you too.”

He exhales smoke and smiles sadly into the night.

“Don’t let them get to you,” she says, eyes on the brightly lit hall, “They’re jealous. Extinct animals clinging desperately at relevancy.”

“They’re your people.”

She laughs mockingly. “ _My_ people are at the northern border.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” He says, “Because mine are _across_ the eastern one.”

A pause. “Mustang...”

“They’re not jealous of me, Major,” Roy says, “They’re disgusted.”

Olivier’s quiet for a while.

“Well. If you can’t change their mind,” she says, “Why not just rub it in their faces? She’s right over there, looking for you. And you do have _some_ friends in this crowd, punk.” Olivier crushes the cigarette underneath her shoe and walks inside, her tailcoats swinging with her hips.

Roy inhales the flower-scented air. “ ‘Looking for me’, huh?” He repeats to himself, and strides back in.

Riza’s at the outer edge of a circle that consists of various young women and a few high-ranking military officials. He strips his gloves.

“Lady Hawkeye,” he says, “May I have this dance?”

“ _Sir,_ ” She says, visibly relaxing, “I thought you’d never ask.”

Her hands aren’t as soft, and her steps aren’t as light, and she’s hard, solid muscle in his arms rather than soft flesh, but their steps fall in synch like they never fell out, and soon it’s just him, and her, and the quick violin.

“You’re stronger,” she says, slightly breathless after a lift.

“So are you.”

And the guests stare, and stare, and stare.

His hair’s a bit of a mess and he lost his scarf somewhere along the night. Roy piles his plate with some odd fish he’s never seen that tastes faintly of sea salt and almonds and he’s decided he likes.

“You’re having fun.”

“It’s a fun party.”

“Would you believe,” Grumman says, “In the twenty three years I’ve done this, that’s the first time anyone’s used that adjective to describe my gala?”

“No offense, sir,” Roy says, “But you must’ve been inviting very boring people for twenty three years.”

“I suppose I was.”

There’s a bit of silence.

“You make my granddaughter happy, Mustang.”

There we go.

“We aren’t in a relationship. Sir.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he says, waving his hand, puffing his pipe, “But you _do_ make her happy.”

“I suppose I do, sir.” Roy looks at him straight, for the first time. Grumman’s face has an odd, open quality that he’s never seen, and a gentle flush of liquor.

“I made a mistake, with Eleanor,” He says, “I will not make it again.”

“...Okay, sir.”

“You two have my full support,” Grumman says, “Always.”

—

“Someone was a hit.”

“Oh, I was not.”

“They were all _looking_ at you!” Riza says, gasping. She’s drunk, just a bit. He’s never seen her drunk before. “Half the women in there are in love with you. And a couple men too, I bet.” They’re in the backseat of a car, courtesy of General Grumman.

“You really believe that, huh? That they couldn’t stop looking at me because they were oh-so in love with me?” Alright, perhaps he’s had a little too much too, “You’re blind, Riza.”

“Illuminate me, then!” She says, “Explain to me why everyone could not take their eyes off you as you were… as you were _burning_ ,” She pauses, waits, for her pun to hit, “The dance floor?”

“Because!” He says, “Because, to _them_ , I’m a dirty Xingi rat defiling the-the,” he gestures at her, “the lady Hawkeye, the Grumman family heir, the _Marchioness_ of—”

“Roy.”

“Of Eastern City.”

“ _Roy._ ”

“Don’t call me that!” She’s blurry. He can’t understand why. “I’m sorry,” He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, and takes deep breaths, “I’m sorry, I can’t—I shouldn’t have yelled. I’m sorry. I’m—”

Strong arms wrap around him. Squeeze. He inhales sharply and halfway through it turns into a sob.

“It’s—it’s stupid.”

“It’s not,” She says, “It’s not, Roy. Not if it hurts.”

“I’m never going to be good enough for you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m never—never going to be Amestrian enough, never going to be respectable enough, never—”

“Roy Mustang,” She says, rubbing circles into his back, “You’re the most remarkable man I have ever met. You shouldn’t have been put through that. We’ll never go there again.

“ _Riza_ ,” He sobs into her shoulder, like a needy child, “I’m. You don’t know how they _see_ me. How everyone _sees_ me.”

“You’re right,” She murmurs into his hair, “But I can shoot their eyes out.”

—

Planning a coup is just like those six months he spent with Madam, before the military academy. Except he’s the one controlling the strings. Little favours, here and there. Little slips of papers from drunk nights in anonymous hotels, passed along via runners age twelve, fourteen, sixteen. Clandestine meetings with his foster sisters, or grown men on the verge of pissing their pants.

He has a lot of girlfriends.

And they call often.

—

Michaela comes to his chest, now. Chrissy’s started school. They’ve bought the building adjacent to _Meyer’s_ , and knocked down the walls. The bakery sprawls, with two counters, and more hired hands than he’d seen.

“The war was kind to you.”

Claire smiles, it doesn’t reach her eyes. She twists a red ribbon into Michaela’s braid. “You want something, Roy?”

“A favour,” he slides her a slip of paper, across the table. She sends Michaela away with a kiss and a pat and then unfolds it. Frowns.

“What do you need?”

“Dirt. As much as you can find.”

“Why not go to Christmas?”

“Because,” he says, “I don’t want her to know how petty I am.”

Claire smiles, true and wide this time, pointier than he remembers. “You can be as petty as you want,” she says, “Roy boy.”

—

Grumman’s correspondence, the ones he doesn’t particularly care for, now come across Mustang’s desk.

It’s a simple telegram.

> **Resembool. Suspicious alchemic activity. Send investigators.**

“Resembool?” Fuery says, “It’s just a tiny village, sir. Not the sort to have powerful alchemists.”

“You shouldn’t underestimate tiny villages, sergeant,” he says, putting on his coat. “They sprout the most unexpected things.”

“Lieutenant!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Prepare a car,” he says, “We’re going out into the countryside.”

—

Roy Mustang has three weapons. Two are well known. The third is his words.

But like all weapons, they fail sometimes. They fail at Isvhal, when he tries to describe what he saw, what he did. And they fail in a tiny house in a tiny village.

—

“What should the report say, sir?”

He sees Edward Elric when he blinks.

“False alarm.”

—

“Thank you for making it on such short notice.”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice,” Monroe sneers, “ _Mustang_.”

Roy smiles. Funny how dried roses and a bit of lace could make Brigadier-Generals drive across whole sectors in the middle of the night, probably wiping their sweaty faces every five minutes and cursing.

He kicks the chair towards him. “Take a seat.”

“What kind of—”

“I said,” Roy stands, slowly, forcefully, palms pushing down on the table, “take a _seat_. Sir.”

Monroe plops down, moustache bristling. “I had never met that girl in my life, I don’t know what you were _implying_ , you insubordinate little shi—”

He tosses a manila folder on the table.

“What is this?”

“Open it, Brigadier-General.”

Roy’s office is lit by a solitary bulb. He’s standing in the shadows, hands in his pockets, watchful. Unblinking.

He sees Monroe’s face pale, his fingers go from steady to trembling to shaking. And then his cheeks redden and his veins pop and he screams, his words scrambled and loud and incomprehensible, though Roy manages to catch _lies_ and _fakes_ and _Xingi._

Roy slams his fist down on the table. Monroe flinches.

“The military doesn’t care about your little _indulgences_ , and _I_ don’t care about your marriage,” he says, “but you’ve been _stealing_ , Monroe. From the army. From the _Führer_. Rations, ammunitions, _horses_. You thought we wouldn’t find out, huh? You thought you could carry on your little side business forever?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“Do not _insult_ me,” Roy says, “Brigadier-General.”

He’s shaking. Roy thinks he’s sobbing but then—Monroe throws his head back, laughing. He wipes his eyes. “Oh, you child, you stupid, stupid, child. You think they care, huh, you little rat? You think they care about a few missing rifles? You know _nothing_ , don’t you, about the truth, about what this country is really about, about the future—”

Mustang slaps him in the face with another folder.

“I may not know what the hell you’re talking about,” he says, “but I know the punishment for treason is death.”

Monroe’s laughing as he smugly opens the folder and pulls out the document. He isn’t laughing by the time he finishes reading them.

“M-M-M-THIS IS NONSENSE! THIS IS!” His eyes bulge from their sockets and his lips dribble and his fingers shake and within moments he’s throwing himself across the table to strangle Roy.

“Brigadier-General,” the click of s safety, “I suggest you let him go.”

Roy brushes his jacket. Monroe seethes, helpless under Riza’s nine millimetre handgun.

“I’d say that’s assaulting a fellow officer, wouldn’t you?”

“And you have an unbiased witness, too!” Rebecca pipes up from the door, cheerily walking inside the office. Riza rolls her eyes fondly. She arrests him, his chest flat on the table, his wrists cuffed behind his back.

“Brigadier-General Richard Monroe, I am arresting you for the assault of Colonel Roy Mustang, illegal acquisition and sal—”

“Why,” Monroe bites out, “why, Mustang?”

Roy leans down, peering down at his balding head.

He touches the side of his face, gently. Monroe flinches.

“Do you remember Colmar? The church? The graveyard of unwanted bones?”

Monroe grunts. Roy’s fingers tighten in his hair and he yanks his head up. His eyes are watery, and wide. Scared. Angry. Hunted.

He’s pathetic.

“My _mother_ was buried there."

And he slams his face down. When Monroe raises his head, he looks dazed, lip bleeding.

“Take him away, Rebecca,” Mustang says, sitting down on the chair, feet landing on the table inches from Monroe’s face with a loud _thud,_ “Tell the military police he tripped.”

“That was unnecessary, sir,” Riza says, an hour later. He’s dropping her home.

“Oh, I had it all under control, lieutenant,” he says, massaging his neck, “I wanted it on record that he committed a crime against _me_.”

“That’s not what I was talking about,” She says, as the car rolls to a stop, “for a moment,” she looks at him, “for a moment I thought I had pulled the gun on the wrong man. Sir.”

That night, he stares at the ceiling.

That night, he knows he’s won, but he doesn’t feel victorious.

—

They make him colonel.

For ‘uncovering conspiracies’.

—

Gracia’s pregnant.

To be specific, she’s twenty two weeks along, and quickened nine days ago, and the baby’s kicked about a dozen times since then.

“It’s so strong! You can feel it! Oh, I just know, it’s going to be my little athle—”

“Hughes!” Roy pinches the bridge of his nose, “You said you had something to _say_.”

“Oh! Yeah, I totally forgot. I’ve sent a resume your way. Jean Havoc. Was disciplined a couple times, but,” he says, “I think he’ll do better under you.”

Lieutenant Havoc’s tall, blond, disobedient in a way that doesn’t break rules on a technicality and therefore cannot be disciplined.

He’s also whip-smart, a crack shot, goes through paperwork like butter, and finds the loopholes embedded inside the tear-inducingly dull pages of rulebooks for Mustang to fit his schemes into as he breathes.

“Colonel, honestly,” Havoc drawls, cigarette between his lips, shoes on table, “Sometimes I think you’re trying to overthrow the government or something.”

Everyone freezes. Feury’s white. Even Hawkeye looks up.

And then Havoc cracks into a wicked, dazzling smile and everyone in the room lets out a collective breath.

“Get your dirty boots off the desk,” Mustang snaps, “Lieutenant.”

“Aye, sir.”

He _hates_ Havoc.

“Hughes, as loathe as I am to admit it,” Mustang idly twists the telephone wire, finally getting a chance to get two words in after ten minutes of gushing about lactation techniques and the smallness of baby clothes, “but you were right. He’s good.”

—

Elicia’s born on a Sunday morning. It’s August, the clouds are fluffy cotton against a clear blue sky, and she’s four kilos and two hundred grams. Gracia’s wide awake but exhausted after a relatively short labour, and Maes’ has cried thrice in the two hours Roy and Riza have been in the hospital.

She’s tiny and red and cries like eardrums have personally offended her. He’s the godfather. Gracia’s sister, Mirabelle, is the godmother. Roy drives them all home in the evening, and he, Riza, and Mirabelle end up piling into the kitchen to make as many meals as they can fit into the refrigerator, so the new parents at least don’t have to worry about _that._

An hour later, Maes wanders into the kitchen, just to cry on Roy’s shoulder, again, incomprehensibly gushing.

As they’re leaving, Hughes presses a notebook into his hands.

“For your nightmares,” he says, “I planned on giving it to you.. Try writing after you wake up. Might help.”

Roy’s twenty six and he thinks maybe, just maybe.

Things will be okay.

—

Edward Elric passes his certification exam and becomes the youngest State Alchemist ever at age twelve and gains the title of Fullmetal Alchemist.

“So someone finally broke your record,” Hawkeye says, on the drive back home, “how was it? I heard he pulled a weapon on the führer.”

“He did,” Roy says, thinking about the scene from the balcony, about his cocky determination, Bradley’s thinly veiled wrath that promised extra attention, about how _stupidly_ ornate the spear had been. He groans into his palms, “that boy is going to be a fucking _pain_ , lieutenant.”

“There, there, sir,” Her voice brims with mirth, “consider it cosmic punishment.”

—

He _is_ a pain.

But he’s also twelve and believes, with every fiber of his being, that he’s the smartest person in whatever room he’s in.

It’s almost devastatingly easy.

“Fullmetal,” Roy can see him internally groaning after yet another chide about over-expenditure and goose chases. “Pass this file to Lieutenant Hawkeye as you leave,” Roy looks up, meets his eyes, “Do _not_ look inside.”

Two weeks later, he’s getting yet another commendation for his skillful handling of a string of security breaches towards the eastern border.

“Didn’t Elric take care of that one?”

“Yes, Hawkeye,” he says, “But then I told him ‘good job, fullmetal. This will put you on a fast track to a promotion.’ ”

She sighs. “You’re incorrigible, sir.”

—

The nightmares don’t stop. He gets used to them, mostly. The stinking fields, the ashen air, the swelter of flames. The faces. Brown skin, red eyes.

Then there are the nights when he sees a house that isn’t nameless, the rows of carrots he’s familiar with, a white swing.

Heathcliffe.

There are some things even he can’t get used to.

There are some things he shouldn’t.

And now he has a pencil, and a notebook, and he can scribble away until dawn or, if something somewhere, though he has never had faith, smiles on him, he drifts off to sleep.

—

Grumman invites him to his office one evening, and instead of maps, whips out a carved wooden box.

“Colonel,” he asks, “do you play chess?”

—

He can go days now, working alongside Riza, without actually _thinking_ about her. About the tiny flat on Bay Street, about his empty, stupid dreams he was certain were inevitable. But then the light catches her bangs, or she makes some unthinking reference to fabric, or music, or brushes his forearms with her fingertips to get his attention.

He wonders if she kept the ring. He doesn’t dare ask.

“Happy Birthday,” he says, while they are pointedly not alone, and slides her a box of chocolates from Meyer’s.

“It’s your birthday, lieutenant? Why didn’t you say anything!” Feury.

She picks up the box, “I forgot.”

He looks at her. _Is this okay? Is this too much? Is this allowed?_

“Ooh,” Havoc says, “Isn’t that the fancy bakery up in _Central_? My, my, colonel, you went all out!”

“I know the owner,” Roy says, irritated.

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, “lieutenant.”

—

Havoc doesn’t walk. He prowls. Languid, graceful steps, practically begging for the arrogant swish of a tail. He catches himself staring. It’s annoying. It’s annoying how he finds it annoying, the slight strain of the fabric on his shoulders, his rolled up sleeves, his long, certain fingers. Fingers used to sensitive triggers.

Fingers he knows.

“Fuck!” The inkblot spreads from his fountain pen, staining the form useless. Roy caps the pen and shoves it into the holder. “ _Fuck_.”

“Problem, boss?”

"Go to hell, Havoc."

—

Havoc kisses him first.

It’s a fight, some stupid fight, and they got in each other’s faces, but Havoc’s stupidly tall and he bracketed against the wall and—Roy’s frozen, utterly. It’s been long. It’s been too long. His lips are chapped, and taste of smoke, and there’s no give to his body, no curve, and he melts right into it.

“Havoc,” Roy touches his chest, “Havoc, we can’t.”

“Jean,” He breathes against his neck. It’s hot. “Call me Jean.” A muscled thigh goes between Roy’s legs. He whines.

“She’s okay with this, right?”

“Who?”

Jean cocks his head. “Riza.”

Roy groans, “Does everyone think we’re together?”

“No,” he says, “Feury’s convinced you’re married.”

“You know, you have no business pondering on such ridiculous—” Jean kisses him breathless, his muscled body pressing into his.

“Yours or mine?”

“M-mine,” Roy says, finally, clutching at Jean’s side, “I’ll drive.”

—

“Have you done this before? With a man?” Jean’s hand is stroking up his thigh. Roy is, somehow, naked, while he’s infuriatingly dressed.

“Does it _matter_?”

“So, no?” He sounds so _amused._ But he’s giving him that dazzling smile of his, and Roy can’t muster any anger.

“Get on with it.”

“Mm, Colonel,” Jean says, hoisting his thighs over his shoulder, and then leaning down, “I think I’ll take my time with you.”

Jean swallows him whole.

Roy comes embarrassingly quickly, keening like something in heat. Later, his fingers are slow, and gentle, and it’s late, unreasonably late, but he can’t make himself do anything other than moan and clench the pillow.

“Looks good enough,” Jean says, and there’s a blunt pressure, “tell me if it hurts,” and he slowly pushes in, inch by inch.

—

“Roy? Roy!”

“Wh-what—” Nightmare. Just a nightmare. Not Ishval. Roy pants. _Not Ishval._

Jean’s quiet. His hand’s heavy on his shoulders.

“Need anything?”

“No, thank you, I,” Roy exhales, “Do you mind if I turn on the lights?”

“Not at all.”

He stares at the blank pages while Jean snores. Roy starts off with random lines, spirals. And they twist into a broad, muscled back, without a hint of ink or scar tissue.

—

He’s twenty nine, and sailing through the ranks. In the three years since he’s met the boy, Roy’s managed to figure out how to roughly harness the swirl of destruction that is Edward Elric and point him at something that actually needs to be destroyed. In general, it needs a lot of gentle prodding, a couple shoves, bribes, and a thorough strangulation of one’s ego, to tolerate insults from a teenage brat.

Roy thinks he’s doing the boys a favour, sending them off to Shou Tucker.

“Thank you, lieutenant,” He says, taking the offered cigarette from Hawkeye, lighting it up, and inhaling deeply. “What a mess," exhaling a puff of smoke.

“How are they taking it?”

“Poor child,” He says, glancing back into the door, cordoned off by police tape, and then at the shut car, blond hair and grey metal faintly visible through the glass, “poor children.”

“Do you think it’s him, sir?”

“Definitely,” he says, “It’s the same destructive alchemy.”

“What are your orders?”

Roy bites back lines of commands about the swirling plans in his head, about tracking, and locating, and bringing him in.

“Take the boys home, Hawkeye. They’ve had enough.”

The universe disagrees.

—

It’s raining. Of course it’s fucking raining.

He shoves his gun into Riza’s hand, confident she’ll understand, and strides towards Scar, glove at the ready.

Roy can’t help the little internal trill of joy when she kicks his feet out from under his knees.

—

He’s transferred to Central.

The first thing he does is see Christmas, who launches into business with the barest brush of a hug.

The second thing he does is go to Meyer’s, where he’s immediately tackled by two girls who have _no_ right to be as tall as they are, and then their mother.

“I got presents,” he tells them. They’re quickly torn open. Chrissy’s gift is, much to Claire’s chagrin, a slingshot. And Michaela gets one of those new romance novels he often finds at the desks of the younger cadets. She turns red, immediately, but he sees how she discreetly takes it into her bedroom as he’s talking with Claire.

The third thing he does is something he promised a lifetime ago. A purchase of a tiny flat.

“Is everyone settling well?”

“Havoc is handling Central fine. Feury enjoys the higher communications budget. Falman and Breda are adjusting to the higher inflow and information.”

“And you, lieutenant?”

She stops straightening her stack of files and looks at him, “I am fine, sir.”

“Good. Good to know.”

A pause.

“Is there something you want to say, sir?”

He runs his hand across the desk. It’s identical to the one in Eastern Command. The new keys sit heavy in his pocket.

“Good job, lieutenant.”

The fourth thing he does is chicken out.

—

The receiver damn near rings off the phone, by the time Roy reaches his office. Black Hayate pants at his side, tongue lolling, stomach round with bacon.

“There’s a Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes on the line for you—”

Christ.

“Put him through,” _click_ , “Listen, Hughes, I don’t have time for any daughter stories—” Elicia’s about to start school and he’s been needier than ever, taking more photographs, telling about every new outfi–

“R-Roy..”

“Hughes?”

No response.

“Hughes!”

_Click._

Black Hayate mewls.

—

_Mommy, why are they putting all that dirt on daddy?_

—

His last words to Maes were, essentially: shut up. I’m not interested.

—

Roy’s numb.

“Driver, take a left here,” She says. The chauffeur’s new.

“No,” he says, “Straight on. We’re going to Bay Street.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Colonel?”

“I can’t..” _go home. Be myself. Not today._

“I understand, sir.”

The stairs are narrower than he remembers. He bought the flat without checking it in person, but the memories and feelings and the naïve giddiness comes rushing back when he sees the hallway and the white door.

His eyes are wet again.

Beside him, Riza’s trembling.

“I have the keys with me,” He says quietly, feeling up his pockets for his wallet, “I carry them everywhere.”

It smells the same.

The furniture’s new, but it smells the same.

“Look,” Riza says, pointing at the ceiling, “the scorch marks are still there.”

Roy crumples on the floor and starts crying, loud and ugly and snot dripping into his mouth, like a small child.

Riza serves him tea. He realises at some point she must’ve had to leave the flat, because there wasn’t any milk, but he honestly didn’t notice her exit. He murmurs a quiet thanks and curls smaller in the little corner of the living room he’s found himself, his dress uniform crumpled, and sips at the cup.

It’s brewed just how he likes it.

“Will you stay? Tonight?”

“Of course, sir.”

She moves in his peripheral vision, stocking things, opening cupboards, stripping sheets off of brand new furniture he’d ordered without looking.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” She steps out from the bedroom.

“I said I’m sorry!”

She looks confused.

“I’m sorry, I—” His throat closes up again, and his eyes burn, and at this point the waves of grief crashing against his lungs are just irritating. Roy angrily wipes his eyes. “I’m sorry I broke all the promises I ever made you and I’m sorry this isn’t over and I’m sorry this flat is so empty and small and dusty and I’m sorry I couldn’t _protect my friend and I’m sorry Elicia will—_ ”

 _“_ Roy.”

Riza kneels in front of him. Her face is soft, her hair falls over her shoulders, and she’s taken off her dress jacket.

“You-you grew out your hair.”

“I did.”

He sniffles.

She takes his face in her warm, calloused hands, and swipes her thumbs across his cheekbones. Riza leans closer, and presses their foreheads together, and he lets out a solitary sob. Her face is blurry, because of the tears, or because she’s so close, but he can make out her sad smile.

“Roy,” It’s been a lifetime, since he heard his name in her voice. It’s a beautiful sound. Her hands touch his face, gentle, full of love, “do you understand?”

God forgive him.

“I do.”

He sees Ishval again in his dreams, except between the brown-skinned, red-eyed faces he incinerates, is Maes. And he keeps screaming long after his vocal chords have turned to ash. Roy wakes to Riza’s bare, terrified face and her nails digging into his shoulders.

“You were having a nightmare,” He sits up, panting, “You wouldn’t wake up.”

“Do you mind,” he asks finally, “if I turn on the light?”

“I’ll stay up with you.”

“No, that’s,” Roy clears his throat, “that won’t be necessary, lieutenant. Thank you.”

This notebook is bare. He requested one be placed here with the furniture, along with pencils and pen and a well of ink. He stares at the accusingly blank pages, and draws lines, over and over, harder and harder, until the paper tears.

Deep breath.

Next page.

He tries to write.

_M—_

_H—_

_Ma—_

Another breath.

_at night i am in an empty field_

_inhaling ashes of my own making_

His hand wobbles. He looks beside him, at the blond hair and tense shoulders peeking out from the blanket.

_behind me is Her, resolute_

_and ahead only blood and coal_

Stop. Close your eyes. He sees it all. The piles of ash, the destroyed homes, the soot covered skulls.

_my demons, have mercy_

_my demons, let me sleep_

Maes. Maes. Maes, Maes, _Maes—_

_my demons, forgive me_

“I’m sorry," Roy bursts out, wet and pathetic, to no one, and everyone, breaths deep and shaky, “I’m _sorry._ ”

A warm hand lands on his thigh, and squeezes.

He breaks.

—

Outside his office, in the waiting room is a an old Xingese man and a young girl, their backs as straight as knives, eyes barely blinking.

“Who are they?”

Breda shrugs. “They’re looking for an arrested illegal alien.”

“This is neither the jail nor the immigration office.”

“The immigration office sent them here.”

“Why,” He says, eyes narrow at Breda, “because they think I speak Xingese?”

Breda sweats.

“Ugh, send them in.”

Their faces relax immediately, seeing him, and the old man launches into rapid-fire Xingese, gesticulating excitedly, face red with anger, to which he has to loudly interrupt, “ _I don’t speak Xingese_!”

The old man freezes. Stares. Tilts his head. And then whispers something to the young girl, to which she snaps embarrassedly.

“I’m sorry, Colonel Mustang,” She says, bowing, “Our prince was arrested and we were told you could help.”

...Prince, huh?

The girl, who he learns is Lan-Fan, and the old man, Fu, tell him a narrative that would have surprised him two weeks ago, but not today. And from what he’s heard about Ling, hoodwinking both the Elric brothers, he probably had a decent shot at becoming Emperor.

It would be a good thing, having an Emperor for an ally.

“It would be my pleasure!” Roy says, beaming. The two share a sceptical look between them that transcends linguistic boundaries.

The door slams open.

It’s Breda.

“Maria Ross!” He shouts, “They’re framing Second Lieutenant Maria Ross! Feury managed to hack into a frequency?”

Roy steeples his fingers.

“And tell me,” he says, “Which prison is Second Lieutenant Ross scheduled to be sent to?”

—

In the years since Ishval, the years since he’d donned his gloves to kill, they’d forgotten who he was. What he was. The _baby-faced flirt_ had almost successfully eroded his reputation of blood. But now he walks through the halls of Central Command, Maria Ross freshly sacrificed to his vengeance, and they look at him and they _remember._

The killing machine. The dog of the military. What the Flame Alchemist _means_ , beyond the softened city officer with the smart suits and the free cakes.

It’s alright. It’s fine. He needs a bit of an edge right now, to get the papers and plans and blueprints he needs, to get to the bottom of the fifth laboratory. But Fullmetal and Alphonse… they’re terrible things, the betrayed faces of children. So he sends the boys off to Resembool, let them know the truth, to wash off his hands. Even though it’s a risk, with their big, running mouths, he lets them know that she’s safe, that he didn’t kill her, that he’s a hero, when in truth he’s just a coward who is terribly afraid of the accusatory eyes of children.

And a liar too.

Because he isn’t innocent of this crime. He’s killed for vengeance before.

And he knows that he will again.

—

Between Ross and Barry and the slowly clicking theories, he knows he will catch no sleep tonight. Roy looks at her, over the table. Her back is tense. She won’t, either. As he leaves, half an before closing time as usual, he drops off a piece of paper at her desk.

_Come home._

_—_

He’s switched into one of his fancier suits with a pale cream scarf and just finished lighting the wicks when the door opens. Shuts.

“Hello, Riza. You’re a bit late.”

“Smells nice,” She says, “did you finally figure out how to cook?”

“Ha, ha, ha,” He mocks, looking her over, “they opened a nice restaurant a few blocks over. Great steaks.”

“I’m going to take a bath.”

“Hurry!”

Riza changes into soft pyjamas (hers) and a blue shirt (his). They discuss everything other than work, and as he washes the dishes, she says, “I brought something for you. That’s why it took me so long.”

Roy hums.

“Hurry up into the bedroom.”

It’s some sort.. Strappy contraption.

Roy smiles. Just a tad smug.

“Why, Miss Hawkeye,” he says, “you’re getting creative.”

She rolls her eyes, though her cheeks are red, “Just help me with it! Rebecca said this was supposed to be easy.”

“Where would we be without Rebecca.”

“ _Roy._ ”

He does the belt just above her ass, making it snug enough to but not enough to dig into her skin. “Alright, what’s next?” Riza digs in her bag and pulls out a _sizable_ steel phallus.

Roy’s mouth shuts with a click.

“Don’t be a baby,” She says, “it’s smaller than you!”

He touches his chest, “I’m flattered you have me memorised well enough to notice that in artificial phalluses.”

She clicks it on.

“Come here.”

They use the kitchen oil. Roy’s flat on his belly, unable to see what she’s doing, unable to predict her touch, totally vulnerable. He closes his eyes. There’s pressure.

“Another finger?”

“Yeah,” her other hand drags down his back, “breathe.”

He tries to recall what Havoc did. “You’re supposed to move them around. Like a pair of scissors. And I’ll be ready before you think I will.”

“Roy,” Riza drags her hand across his side, “I asked you to _breathe_.”

She thrusts gently. He’s on his elbows, she has his hips in a vice grip, and the metal cock inside him is cool and unrelenting. Roy fists the sheets. Riza bites the meaty joint of his shoulder and neck.

“Ah!”

She lets go, and licks it over, like an apologetic tiger. Riza thrusts again. “You’re very,” and again, “soft. Hm.” He comes ten minutes later, with a single squeeze to his cock.

“So, how did it feel?” They’re liquid against the headboard, and his face is tacky with her slick. “Did you like it?”

“Yes,” Riza says, “It’s hard to explain. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it as much as I did, not having any actual nerves involved, but, your, um.”

“My um?” Her hair’s so soft against his arms.

“You look nice. All splayed out underneath me.”

“Yeah?”

“And you _whine._ ”

“I do _not._ ”

“You _do_ ,” Riza smiles at him, small pieces of hair falling over her face. “And you have a nice ass! I think I finally understand what men mean when they talk about it.”

Roy nuzzles into her neck.

“You have a nicer ass than me.”

“Shoulders, too.”

Roy snaps his jaws like a shark. “Yes.”

—

“ _Seriously?_ You’ll punish me for saving your life?”

Riza’s glare is cold.

“Yes.”

—

They steal midnight hours, to go to Bay Street. Their days are a mess, a carefully constructed façade covering up the gaping wound of their crumbling reality, of it being held by the thin strands of contingent plans. They’re stretched thin, all of them, dreading every telegram.

So the nights are theirs and theirs alone.

They’re lying in bed, half-dreaming, glistening skin lit golden by the dawn.

Riza brushes away his sweaty bangs. His eyes are barely open. She’s a blur. “It’s the oddest thing,” she says, and he can’t tell if he’s supposed to hear this or not, “but the second I step over this threshold, you’re twenty one and transmuting gramophones.”

He knows what she means.

Because in these scant few square feet, she’s nineteen and dancing in the twilight.

—

The stink of burning flesh is all the same, even when it’s his own. Roy hobbles towards the noise, clutching his side, and then he sees Lust, arm raised, and Riza, cowering.

He extends his hand. And he snaps his fingers. And he snaps his fingers again, and again, and again.

Roy Mustang’s thirty years old and he kills a thing that can’t die because—

Because he’s in love.

—

They’re doomed.

No one dares say it, not even Olivier, but in the tiny room they’re sharing, they all know it, they’re all thinking it, under the delicate fiction of sleep. It’s too big, even for them, even for him and his queen,. and the two prodigies that the universe cannot seem to beat, even Olivier, and her wall, and her well oiled machine of the Briggs soldiers. It’s Amestris. They’re fighting Amestris. The weight of centuries press down upon them, unrelenting.

The best he can hope for is that Claire doesn’t fight him when he hands her the tickets to somewhere far, far away.

And then.

“What the fuck, Mustang.”

He’s laughing. It’s an ugly bark. Someone else groans.

“Armstrong,” he says, voice light with mirth, “did you know Brigadier-General Munroe?”

“Yeah,” she says, “slimy rascal. Executed, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Roy says, wiping his eyes, “and if I hadn’t killed him, we’d have known about this whole conspiracy five years ago.”

—

Claire doesn’t fight.

“Hmmm, I’ve always wanted to see Xing…” She says, “I can’t believe I’m getting to do it before you, though, Roy-Boy.”

“Yeah,” he says, “bring me some souvenirs, won’t you? I’ve heard it’s quite _foreign_ and _exotic._ ”

“Oh, I’m sure an Amestrian like you could never imagine what Xing is like.”

“Oh, never, _never,_ ” Roy says, eyes half closed, nose raised haughtily.

Claire laughs, and then twists her skirts.

“Be careful, okay?”

“Always am.”

“I mean it. I’m not stupid, you know. I know something big and awful is going to happen.”

“Claire Meyer,” he says, “I’ve thought you many things in the years we’ve known each other. And stupid has never been one of them.”

She smiles, and then hugs him, tightly. The girls come out too, reaching his chest and sternum, and tackle them. _This is why_ , he thinks, being crushed under them, _this is why we have to succeed._

Michaela steps back, and clears her throat.

“Uncle Roy!” She says, Chrissy glares at her. “Chrissy has something to say to you!”

She glares for a second, and then puffs her chest. “I’m going to be an alchemist!” _Oh my god she’s so precious_ , he thinks, “Like Fullmetal!”

Nevermind.

As he leaves, he sense he’s being stared at.

“Chrissy? Is there something else you want to say?”

“Wait a minute!” She says, and runs inside.

She returns, holding something. It’s small and a faded grey with stitches all over. “I transmuted its latest tear shut,” she says, and offers him Batty-Catty, “I want you to have it. As good luck.”

He takes the old toy, and slips it in his pocket. “Thank you, Chrissy.”

“I’ll want it back! When I come back from Xing.”

Roy smiles.

“It’ll be waiting for you.”

—

The soldiers are hiding in the Armstrong manor, the generals have coordinated, the exercises are underway. The board is set, the pieces are in place. Now it’s just the wait.

They often find themselves hiding, and now they’re in Sopron. The old manor is better maintained than he expected, though other than the couple bedrooms in the west wing, it’s covered with sheets. Roy can’t help but poke around, open drawers he used to know so well, find them empty, maybe with a stray match or piece of paper.

Eventually, he ends up in Riza’s bedroom. It’s the only room in the house that looks like it has seen some recent use. He knows she visits occasionally, but he never considered that she still used her bedroom.

Roy knows he shouldn’t but he steps in.

It smells like her.

He stands, taking it in. It looks much the same. The mattress seems thicker. He smiles. Riza’s grown softer. He vaguely walks around, assessing, feeling like a child poking around places he’s not allowed.

There’s a pale green hat box, on the top of her cupboard. It stands out, because it’s the only thing with embellishments. Roy carefully pulls it out, and opens it.

It has a blue velvet dress, carefully folded, that looks like it’s never been worn. Atop it, is a small velvet box he suspects has a ring with a massive ruby, and a small, old key.

After a minute of indecision, he pockets the ring box and carefully keeps the box back.

—

Riza’s blood pools on the transmutation circle.

“Do it, Mustang! Perform human transmutation!”

“Never.” Betrayal is worse than death.

It doesn’t matter.

“I have been keeping an eye on you.”

He flinches, and staggers back. The creature is white, as white as his surroundings, an uninterrupted ocean of blankness, other than the door. His door. The voice is sexless, regionless, ageless.

“What are you?”

The grin splits its face.

“You know what I am. You have been looking for me, your whole life,” behind him, the door creaks, “In alchemy, in Ishval, in Riza Hawkeye.” Roy hyperventilates, and turns his head a few degrees. A giant eye stares back. As he tries to run, it says, “And now you have found me, Roy Mustang! I am Truth!”

Darkness overwhelms him.

And it doesn’t let go.

He falls on hard ground and gropes around in the darkness. A warm voice calls out his name. _Izumi Curtis_. And loud, high-pitched, nasally tones. _Fullmetal_.

“Stay by my side,” Izumi says, “We’ll get out of here.”

Roy knows he’s blind.

But he’s a quick learner.

It’s just another dance. She points, he fires. They fall into each other easier, Riza seamlessly taking on another duty. It’s pure darkness and noise but her arms on his shoulders are sure. Then there’s screams. Cheers. They stand still. And there’s quiet.

“Did we win?”

Riza’s voice trembles.

“Yes, colonel. We did.”

—

In the hospital, they let them share a room. Riza’s basically retired, so they’ve decided to let the act slip, and everyone’s busy with reconstruction anyway. She sleeps most of the day. Roy’s usually up, having someone or the other reading books about Ishval to him.

He has a plan.

And honestly, the blindness really isn’t that big of a hurdle. It’s also a convenient, makes people underestimate him, which he’s discovered can be a power all on it’s own.

People visit. Today, it’s Mei, and Ling Yao, and Lan Fan. It’s a tiny bit awkward, because they realised that the logistics of going back to Xing would be a little more complicated with all transport shut down _after_ having their big, teary goodbyes.

“You know,” he says, “I’m ethnically Xingese.”

That’s the first time he’s said it out loud.

“Mustang,” Ling finally says, keeping a warm hand on his thigh, his tone very _ah okay I’m talking to an idiot_ , “we _know_.”

Roy laughs.

“Would any of you happen to know,” He swallows, “what _mushu-tei_ means?”

They’re silent.

“I’m sure I’m butchering the pronunciation.”

“Your pronunciation’s fine!” Mei chimes in.

“Bit provincial.” The dull slap of hand against shoulder.

“What!” Ling says, “And.. are you sure it’s not _mushi-tei_? Because that means ‘save him.”

“Unless it’s an eastern dialect.”

Roy’s head snaps.

“A dialect?”

“Yeah,” Mei says, “The-uh-the conjugation. It sounds like an eastern dialect. Probably somewhere near the ranges.”

Roy feels a flutter he hasn’t since he was a little boy and saw a Xingese woman in the market square for the first time.

“Really,” he says, “Please tell me more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TELL ME WHAT YOU THOUGHT! what was your favourite bit? the monroe confrontation was probably THEE most fun i ever had writing anything so tell me how it felt! 
> 
> once again, thanks to my amazing beta @agentcalliope. i am @bauliya on tumblr!! hit me up!! :)


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And despite all, a happy ending.

The first thing he sees is Riza. She’s gaunt and pale and her hair is almost brown from grease. 

“Hey, beautiful.” 

She rolls her eyes, a little flushed, “don’t suppose you can fix that, doctor?” 

“Some things are incurable.” 

“Look, colonel!” He turns. It’s Jean, standing, arms spread out, “Back in commission!” 

Roy laughs, and reaches out for Riza’s hand. 

—

Chrissy and Michaela rush forwards to hug him. They’ll learn the details, eventually. But now they just know something bad was going to happen, and that he stopped it. Claire told him on the phone. 

“Oof,” he huffs, hugging them back, close. 

“I have something for you,” he Roy reaches in his sheets, and pulls out a beat up plushie, “Chrissy.” 

“I want you to keep it.” She says, muffled against his chest.

—

Night breeze fills the room and Roy stares out the window, at the full moon. It’s a starry night, with Central not lit up like it usually is. 

“It’s a beautiful night,” She says, her cheek on his shoulder. They pushed their beds together. 

“It is,” Roy says, pushing a strand of hair behind her ears. He’s going to be discharged tomorrow. She’ll stay here a little longer. “I’ll fix up the house for you, apparently Bay Street was spared in the fight, but I’m sure it’s filled with dust like the rest of the city.” 

Her shoulders tense. 

“Riza?” She’s quiet. “What is it?” 

“You know that place is a lie, don’t you?” 

He looks away. 

“Roy,” she lifts their linked hands, “If we.. if we _really_ want to do this, as grown ups, we’re going to have to stop trying to relive what happened, or what could’ve been. You can’t forge a life out of nostalgia.” 

Silence. 

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I love you!” Roy immediately snaps back. 

“No, I mean,” she pulls away, looks at him squarely, “do you love _me_? As I am? Do you love and want what I can give you _now_ or are you just waiting for things to get back to what they were? To normal?” 

His first instinct is to say yes, but he can’t quite get it out. Riza’s face crumples, just a bit. 

“What do you feel, when you look at me?” She asks, small. His eyes sweep over her, at the baggy hospital uniform, the bandages, her sunken, tired eyes. 

“Guilt.” He says, even smaller. 

“What do you feel… when you look at me?” 

She’s quiet for a while. 

“Loss.” 

—

He’s there, a week later, in a tuxedo fresh off the tailor’s table and a bouquet of blood-red roses. 

“You’re incorrigible, sir.” 

“Then you should stop trying, lieutenant.” 

Behind her, a few nurses are staring with wide eyes and red cheeks and giggly faces. He winks. They swoon. Riza sighs and confidently grabs the bouquet, not breaking her stride to the car. “Coming?” 

A few turns in the car later she recognises where they’re going. Riza grasps his arm, “Colonel.” 

“Just trust me, okay?” 

They’re at Bay Street. In front of the building. They don’t enter. 

“Why are we here.” 

Roy extends his arm. Snaps. A flat on the second floor goes up in flames. 

“Oh my god! People—”

“The whole building’s empty.” 

“But—”

“Riza Hawkeye,” She turns. He goes down on one knee. Her mouth’s open slightly, eyes frozen. Roy takes out a small velvet box from his pocket and pops it open to reveal a ring with an obscenely large ruby, “will you give me the honour of loving you, as you are?” 

“You snooped around my room.” 

“Oh, come on.” The fire crackles beside them. 

“That’s very rude, colonel.” 

“There’s mud on my pants right now and my knee is killing me,” he says, “But! But I will wait as long as you need.” 

Riza smiles. 

“Yes.” 

— 

Roy Mustang’s thirty-one and he’s engaged. 

—

They retire from the military. The bicameral legislature, after almost fifty years, is reinstated. Grumman’s Führer, and, after what everyone terms a pointlessly aggressive campaign, Roy’s Prime Minister, with an office at Number 6, Portingham Avenue. The very first day, he passes along the copies of a thick bill, and promises he won’t rest until it’s passed. 

The Ishvalan Bill of Independence and Reparations.

The first year is a flurry of meetings and visits and late nights. He doesn’t see Riza as often as he’d like, and usually when he does, it’s for work. To exchange notes, intelligence, successes, and failures. Regardless of his status, Roy’s still an outsider, and now the face of change, and the old guard doesn’t really like change all that much. 

So Riza, with her ancestry and military laurels, comforts them, makes implied promises that nothing will change, not really, just agree to this thing. And this. And this, too. 

And Roy still wears his military uniform to official engagements, so they’re too distracted to notice money being cut from the military and being funneled into Ishval. It’s a delicate balance, keeping any Amestrian intervention away from Ishval while still funding the budgets Mile and Scar send him. He’d realised very early on that the hands-on approach he’d imagined would harm more than benefit, and really the only thing he could do to take a step back and make sure the money flowed. And ease a lot of bruised egos back home, make lots of promises that may or may not be kept. 

“It’s a beautiful day.” 

“So it is,” Riza says, braiding her hair, swiping on red lipstick. Her new uniform, “you know you’ll have to drop the whole war hero act after this, right?” 

“I thought I had to drop it after I announced that there’d be a trial.” 

“Nobody thought you were serious. They’re probably still expecting you to back out.” 

“Well,” Roy smiles, “I do love shattering expectations. Come on.” 

What goes unsaid is: if there _is_ an after. 

—

The court is in Ishval, and fully packed. Someone throws a tomato at Roy and he incinerates it without burning. It lands with a dull slosh on the ground. “Pity,” Riza says, “I like roasted tomatoes.” 

Scar, the last of the Ishvalan clergy, is the judge. On trial is almost the entire ex-Amestrian military brass. 

He looks odd, in white robes. 

He slams the gavel. 

“Let’s begin.”

—

They execute five generals, before one is declared innocent. Olivier Armstrong. Roy requests that newspapers no longer be sent to his office. Alex, too, is declared innocent, as expected. Roy requests that he be judged on the same day as Riza. His motion is granted. 

Marcoh pleads guilty. 

He’s executed by firing squad. 

It’s a damp Ishvalan winter with comfortable days and freezing nights, when it’s their turn. At first, there was pure rage, directed at Ishval, Grumman, and Roy, in weekly cycles. But now the testimonies of the Ishvalan survivors have been committed to paper and spread wide, and all the detractors who had so much to hate to spew about the trials have shut up. Mostly. Roy, for the first time in his life, cuts a sympathetic figure, and now regularly has roses left at his doorstep, and long articles about why, he, the prime minister who started the trials in the first place, has already atoned. 

“How will you plead?” Riza asks, the night before. Their trial is tomorrow. They spent the day mostly in bed, and now they’re having dinner, still in pyjamas. 

It’s the first time they’ve discussed their trial. 

“Innocent,” he says. He doesn’t want to judge himself. He wants to be tried, properly. “What about you?”

Riza’s eyes settle somewhere far. 

“I don’t know.” 

—

The sun is bright. The air is cold. 

“Roy Mustang,” Scar says, “how do you plead?”

“Innocent, your honor.” 

“Very well.” 

His primary witness is a girl of about sixteen with half her face burned off, and her ear melted into a crushed ball. 

The verdict is guilty. 

“Riza Hawkeye,” Scar says, “how do you plead?” 

“I—” Her blue eyes swirl. They avoid his. 

“I want to hear my victims. Innocent.” 

It’s a young man in a wheelchair. She shot him in the back, as he was trying to run away when he was eleven. 

“This court finds you guilty of crimes of war against the people of Ishval.” 

They keep them in the same cell. 

“It’s the oddest thing,” Roy says, head in her lap, “I feel very.. light.” 

“Me too,” She cards her fingers through her hair, and offers him a rare smile, “our guilt is the executioner’s problem now.” 

They wake to the sounds of gentle clangs. Roy sits up. Blue sunlight streams from the solitary window near the ceiling.

“Scar,” he says, voice thick with sleep, “hello.” 

“Hello.” A guard unlocks the door. 

“You’re escorting us in person?” Riza. 

“No,” Scar says, and straightens, “the people of Ishval have pardoned you for the crimes you committed during the Ishvalan genocide.” 

Roy squints, “why?” 

He hands them a rolled piece of paper, tied with a ribbon. “I talked... With the elders and the witnesses and a few more people. We all agree you committed unforgivable sins, but,” he says, “we also believe you two are capable of doing more good than you have done harm.” 

“That’s… that’s a tall order,” Roy says, taking the scroll. 

“Yes. It is,” he says, “This is your second chance. Don’t disappoint us.” 

“We won’t,” Riza says, tone steel. 

Roy Mustang’s thirty two and he is, finally, forgiven. 

—

Officially, he’s on a diplomatic mission to Xing to discuss trade routes. Actually, he’s making it through the list of villages Mei sent him that spoke the dialect she’d mentioned. The letter’s three years old. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t even look at it, until he reconstructed Ishval enough to deserve it. 

It’s high noon, but the fogs and altitude give everything the blue dimness of dawn. The village is called Suzhou, nestled in the Taihang range. Its population fluctuates depending on the season, the herders going into the valley during winter. In the middle of spring, it’s teeming. 

It’s the second last village on the list. 

“It’s beautiful,” Riza says, tugging her horse to a halt. They overlook the sharp fall, into paddy fields. Wide steps cut into the mountain, filled with water that reflects the hundred colours of the sun. 

Roy can’t enjoy it. 

“Let’s go,” he says, and trots his horse on. He’s travelling light; just him, Riza, Jean, Kain, his PA, and three bodyguards. This is beginning to feel pointless. He doesn’t doubt that his parents had some connection to these villages, but they were desperate enough to brave the desert on foot. Desperate people tended to not be remembered, not thirty years after their deaths. 

Still. He likes crossing things off of lists. 

It’s a quaint village where they draw too much attention. They being everyone other than him. It’s a nice change of pace, watching his cohort be stared at and uncomfortable in their light hair and pink skin, and him blending in with the general population. Of course, then he opens his mouth. His Xingese is rusty and, as Ling loves reminding him, provincial. 

“Six teas, please,” he says, as they unload their horses and collapse into the chairs in what appears to be the town’s only teashop, “And fried sweet potatoes and dumplings.” That’s pretty much what’s reliably good in every eatery in Xing. 

It’s odd. He can sense people whisper about him, and from the corner of his eye spots a young server sprinting off. Everyone else has seemed to notice too. Jean’s tenser, hand resting on the butt of the gun underneath his coat. Roy glares. Jean doesn’t react. 

“Perhaps they know who you are,” Riza says, though her fingers tap away at her side, too. It’s very unlikely, that the people of Suzhon would concern themselves with Amestrian Prime Ministers. 

“Don’t eat anything, sir,” Alicia, his bodyguard, says. 

“You’d have me offend our hosts on a diplomatic mission?” He smiles. 

She doesn’t relax. 

“Oh god,” They turn. It’s a short, stout woman with wide shoulders and a thin grey braid. She’s clutching a straw hat to her breast, and her eyes look close to popping out of their sockets, “Oh my _god_ , you look _just_ like your mother.” 

Roy stands up. 

“You.. you knew her?”

She laughs wetly. “She was my sister.” 

—

Her name’s Jingyi, and she has a hearty laugh and orders a round for everyone even though it’s just noon and throws her strong arm around his shoulders and he’s so, so embarrassed, but, also. 

Happy. 

“Tell me about her.” His words are so clunky, it’s humiliating. He should’ve spent longer trying to learn them. It’s just them, in Jingyi’s home. Everyone else is in the garden, and he can see from the corner of his eye Riza trying to feed a fussy goat some leaves. 

“Oh, she was a beautiful woman,” Jingyi says, and pulls down a picture for him. It’s a photograph of two sisters that bear very little resemblance. There’s a short tomboy with close cropped hair, a straw hat, and a reed sticking out of her mouth, whom he supposes is Jingyi, and an elegant young woman with straight hair falling to her waist and a serene smile, whom he supposes—

Is his mother. 

Roy touches the glass as lightly as he can. “Feng-Mian. She looks such an angel here, doesn’t she?” He nods. And then she laughs, “Well, she wasn’t! She was an absolute demon with a sword, terrorised the little lordling down in the valley to leave the girls alone. And she’d sneak out at all hours, and had half the boys in this village _and_ the next one slicing their hands to write love confessions in blood.” 

“She sounds amazing.” 

“She was.” 

“Why did she try to.. Run?” 

Jingyi’s face softens. “When she was nineteen, she decided to go to the city. We all expected it, this village.. It was too small for her,” She says, “But then.. Then she fell in with the wrong sort. She came back, three years later, with no money, but a husband. Pregnant. They thought they could hide up in the mountains, but then we got news that soldiers were spotted up in the pass.” She looks out the window, “They said they had nothing from them here, that they’d try their luck in Amestris.” 

Roy reaches out, and squeezes her arm. There’s a pause. 

“Did she ever discuss names?”

“Yes,” Jingyi says, “she had her heart set on Zhang-li, for a boy.” 

—

There’s a small shrine, at the outskirts of the village. A list of names, carved into stone. His fingers run through it, until he sees it. Feng-Mian. 

He lights a candle, drags it over her name, like his aunt had told him. He melts some of the hardened wax on the floor and secures his candle it, and kneels. 

“Hello, Mummy,” Roy says, in Xingese, “It’s—” Inhale, exhale. “It’s Zhang-li.” 

—

Riza’s waiting for him outside. 

“Your aunt seems nice.” 

“She is.” 

There’s another woman waiting, when they reach home. She has thick frizzy curls and glasses that make her eyes look comically huge, and she’s tall and spindly with a soft purple dress. 

“You DO look like her!” His eyes hunt for Jingyin. She’s nodding beside her. “Oh!” The woman says, immediately grasping his face, and squishing his cheeks. 

“Aunti—”

“Oh, let Baozhai enjoy this moment,” She says, wrapping her arm around the woman’s waist, “She let the kiddies go home early just to see you.” 

“He’s so cute,” She says, finally letting his cheeks go, which he grumpily rubs, “I made lunch!” 

“Food!” Havoc says, barreling past him. 

Baozhai’s thethre school teacher, and shares the house and the farm with her aunt. They met in the capital, and he gathers she was engaged to be married against her will and ran off with hiser aunt. 

“We’re close friends,” Jingyin says. 

“Yes, we are,” Bao says, winking over her tea cup. 

“Mhm,” Says Riza. 

Roy senses something has happened, but he can’t exactly pinpoint what. 

They leave two days later, horses weighed down with bags of produce and dumplings, two women waving at them and Roy waving right back, with promises to visit. 

“Was it what you expected?” 

“No,” he says, “It was beyond whatever I dared to hope.” 

Roy Mustang’s thirty four, and he knows he has roots. 

—

Almost overnight, it seemed, everyone started publishing papers. Bradley had a tight control on media, and papers were less censored and more nonexistent. Now, though. 

“I’m cheating on you.” 

“With?” Riza slides a press-hot copy of _The Daily Report_ across their breakfast table. 

“Havoc.” 

Roy nearly chokes on his toast. PRIME MINISTER’S FIANCÉE SPOTTED ON A DATE WITH HEAD OF SECURITY, and it’s a photo of Riza and Havoc getting coffee together, Havoc smiling his thousand-watt smile, Riza deadpan. 

“We’d save them headline space,” He says, “First lady is so much smoother than Prime Minister’s Fiancée’”

“I won’t be First Lady,” She says, sipping coffee, “You’re not Führer.” 

“Details, details.”

—

They get married in June. 

Grumman offers them Brenthan Hall but he wants to invite as few people as possible, and that place demands massive celebrations. They pick Sopron. The still sleepy town has a beautiful Church with a green, sunny hill perfect for a marquee, and it only takes a week or so of alchemy to fix up the old house. 

The seating chart is the biggest pain. They each tackle it for an hour a day, and still it takes a month. They arrange all the Elrics together, with Izumi and her husband, right next to their table, which has Jingyin, Madam, Bao, Claire and her family, Grumman, Rebecca, and her as yet unknown date. Rest.. is a crapshoot. 

“Maybe we can shift the Armstrongs here.” 

Riza tuts. 

“No, they have a… feud with the Machialli’s.” 

“They can sit with Kain and Havoc.” 

“The whole family wouldn’t fit.” 

“Mrs. Bradley?” 

“No,” Riza says, “And then there’s the matter of Ling.” 

Roy groans. 

“Is it too late to rescind the invite?” 

She slaps his arm. 

“You know I’m right! He comes with an army!” 

“He’s a _close friend_.” 

“He’s the _emperor of Xing_ whose cohort is going to get offended the second they see Mei sitting closer to us than them. This whole thing is a diplomatic disaster waiting to happen.” 

“We could elope.” 

“ _No_. Claire would cry. She’s been bugging me about the wedding since I told her we got engaged.” 

“Well, then,” Riza says, matter-of-fact, “I suppose an international incident is just something we will have to risk.” 

—

They end up just attaching two extra tables to the Elrics’ seats and letting the Armstrongs sit closest to the bar. 

—

“I look stupid.” 

“Yes, you do.” 

“Brother!” Al smacks Ed’s shoulder. “You look great, Roy,” he says, a tone so excessively sincere it would come off as mocking on anyone else. 

But he’s wrong, of course. His collar’s too tight and his buttons strain too much, he thought it would be sexy at first, but in the mirror he just looks fat, and old, and his hair’s too thin, and the blazer pinches his shoulders and—

“She’s going to shoot you if you back out,” Havoc says, lighting a cigarette, “so really, what’s the point in thinking about how you look?” 

“You’re right. You’re right.” 

A beat. 

“What if she _realises_ how stupid I look and leaves me?” 

Havoc groans. 

“Roy, be serious,” Claire chimes in, “she would’ve left you when you got that stupid bowl cut in the academy, if she cared about you looking stupid.” 

He stares at his reflection, at his slicked back hair, and considers. 

“You’re right,” he says, a little bit comforted, “I’ve looked way worse.” 

“You certainly have!” 

“ _Brother_.” 

The church is filled with Tiger Lilies and Hydrangeas, and Roy stands at the altar, fidgeting. He absolutely cannot touch his hair, because it took him two hours to gel it down to the perfect level of dishevel, and a single strand more out of place would ruin the whole look. Claire’s beside him, in a tux, his best man. 

There’s an empty space between her and Havoc. 

The doors open. The band plays. 

Riza’s radiant, with Grumman walking her down the aisle, her hair falling over her shoulders, she’s smiling, Roy’s eyes feel a little warm, she’s wearing—

Blue. 

Blue satin. 

Blue satin with uneven panels he remembers stitching in the dead of the night. 

“Oh, _god_ ,” he can’t help but choke out, knuckles pressed to his lips, holding back a sob. 

“Hello.”

“You. Is that,” Roy inhales, shuddering, “Is that?” 

“Al transmuted it bigger for me.” 

The boy bashedly waves. 

Roy manages to collect himself somehow, still shaking, and the priest goes, “We are gathered here today—” 

—

He cries at Claire’s speech. He cries the whole of their first dance, and when Jingyin and Bao gift him his mother’s old comb, because combs are a traditional Xingese present given to newlyweds, and when Chrissy shyly walks up to Riza and calls her ‘aunt’, and when Gracia comes up to him and gives him a cigar that Maes had been saving for his wedding. 

At night, he holds Riza close, and they’re too tired and too drunk to do anything else, and she whispers ‘I love you’ into his bare shoulder and, finally, she cries too. 

—

The job is, mostly, paperwork and crises. And visits. Lots, and lots of visits. Mostly bargaining with people he despises to get what he wants; reparations for Isvhal, funding for schools, reconstruction of houses. For all their kind words for the victims and statues for the heroes and strong admonitions against the Homunculi, the wealthy shut their purses tight when it comes to actually fixing the damage. 

And sometimes, even though it’s the last year of his term and he should be used to it, Roy just feels like a useless fool, playing at Prime Minister, a puppet dictated by a dozen strings with invisible masters. Today’s one of those days. He’s on the phone with a senator, and _this_ close to ripping it out with the cord and tossing it out the window when the door opens and Riza strides in. 

“Mr. Wagner,” He smiles, acidic, “we have run out of time,” and slams the receiver. 

“It’ll only take a moment.” Riza says. 

He whines. “But I missed you so much.” 

“Two moments, then.” 

“Five.” 

She smiles. “Alright.” 

He takes her hands, “I’m glad at least one person in this world who is pleased with me.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, “You pleased a lot of women in this country when you shaved that thing off your lip.” 

“I was only aiming to please one.” 

She does look happy. Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes brighter than usual. 

“Riza?”

“Don’t overreact,” she says, “but I’m pregnant.” 

A pause. 

He overreacts. 

—

“—a national holiday. I can declare today a _national holiday!_ I—”

“ _No._ ” 

—

Riza wants to keep it under wraps, so he tries the best he can, but apparently he overcompensates because Claire pulls him aside and sits him down and lectures him for five minutes over the _importance_ of communication in a relationship, and how passive-aggressiveness _kills_ love, and how _wonderful_ Riza is, and how marriage isn’t a _fling_ and _you have to work for it, Roy, it’s not a teenage summer romance that just happens on its own, it’s an active choice you have to make over and over again_ —and doesn’t let him get a word in edgewise until he blurts out, “she’s pregnant and I’m trying to hide it!”

She doesn’t tell anyone a thing, but the extra pastry baskets ear-marked for the First Lady that begin arriving at Portingham very quickly tip off Edward (who spent much of the last year doing midnight runs to bakeries) after a couple visits and he, of course, as has been proven repeatedly, cannot keep his mouth shut even if his life depended on it. 

They make it to ten weeks before it starts appearing in the papers. Riza touches his arm and assures him it took longer than she expected, and that she’s proud. 

—

Rebecca Jingyin Mustang is born four kilos and two hundred grams, red and screeching like something from the Earth’s depths. Riza lies barely awake and panting, damp blond hair sticking to her skin and pillow, and the doctor quickly confirms they’re both healthy. 

Roy’s transfixed, by the scrunched up red face, the fat little fists, the wisps of black hair. Theirs. His. His vision quickly blurs. 

“Riza,” he whispers, carefully kneeling beside her, “look. Our baby.”

She holds her close to her chest, half-laughing, half-sobbing, “she has your nose.” Roy buries his nose in her hair and murmurs _she does, she does._

—

“Have you packed your medication?”

“Yes.” 

“And Batty-Catty?” 

“Yes.” 

“And extra underwear?”

“ _Ma!_ ” Rebecca stomps her foot, red. She can’t believe her own mother would embarrass her like that, _right_ in front of her friend Yuriy! 

“Listen to your mother, Red,” Roy says, and then leans down and whispers, “Because I once forgot to pack my underwear and _it was awful_.” 

“I’m eight now, I know how to pack, thanks very much,” she says, tightening her strap around her shoulder. She insisted on carrying her bag, and it’s comically oversized. Roy’s already snapped half a dozen pictures of his daughter in her little frock and long braid and pink suitcase and the determined expression of a wilderness explorer, and she’s mad at him. 

“Yes, you’re very grown up now,” Ed says, “Too bad your parents don’t see it.” Rebecca beams at him. 

“Laying it on a bit thick, Rockbell.” 

He sheepishly smiles, “Riza, I have no idea what you mean.” 

Al thunders down the steps, carrying two giggling children in his arms, “All set! I found them! They were hiding in the closet!” 

“Daddyyy, I don’t want to gooooo,” Trisha whines, though she reaches for Ed. 

“You like Central better, don’t you?”

“Mm-hm,” the six year old says, “Auntie Claire gives me all the pastries.” 

Roy sticks his tongue out at Ed. Ed snarls. 

“O-kay, then!” Al says, inserting himself between them, swinging Jian by his feet like he preferred. Al propped the boy down on his feet and then looked at all four children, hands on his hips, “Are we packed? Clothes? Toys? Medications?” A pause, “ _Underwear_?” 

Black Hayate slowly walks to the kids and they descend, peppering her with kisses and pats, letting her lick their faces. They all have her pups running around in their homes. 

—

Roy can’t figure out exactly how the tradition started but for three years now, ever since Jian, the youngest, started school, summer vacations are spent like this: for the first two weeks, the kids stay at Central, and mostly spend their days sleeping at Number 6 and running around the city. For the next two weeks, they go to Rush Valley, and stay with Ed and Winry. Finally, they go to Xing, to the Chang village. It’s close to Suzhou. Mei often takes Rebecca to see her grand-aunts. 

Rebecca, though she looks exactly like him, acts more and more like Riza every day. There’s something about her posture, the set of her eyes. She has no interest in alchemy, and prefers thick fiction novels, horror and murder mysteries, which Roy packs into a separate bag. 

Yuriy and Trisha have no inclination towards alchemy, either. They do love tinkering around with machines, and Roy often finds them unscrewing various appliances. 

Jiang Chang likes Alkahestry, but only because it lets him heal the little injured critters he finds around the village. Nothing too startlingly advanced for his age. Nothing prodigious. 

Though the boys won’t say it, Roy knows that they, like him, are grateful. 

Rebecca waves at them through the rear window, and both of them stand at the door and wave back until the van disappears over the horizon. They were supposed to leave in the afternoon, but between late mornings and lost toys and last minute snacks and lost homework, it’s already twilight and the sky is a swirl of reds and oranges and purples. 

“Do you want some tea?” Roy asks, his head fitting into the curve of Riza’s neck and shoulder like a puzzle piece, “I think the kids spared some of Claire’s cookies.” 

“Tea sounds nice,” Riza says, squeezing his butt, “I can think of something better, though.” 

Roy Mustang’s forty-four and—

And he finally comes home from war, to his happy ending. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....i can't believe it's done you guys. 
> 
> This means a lot to me, mainly because this is the FIRST creative project i've undertaken that i've actually finished!! Only took me 20 years!!! haha. As always, comments are l o v e.

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to my AMAZING beta agentcalliope. i literally love her. please check out jiu. i have already finished this fic and I PROMISE there will be a chapter every week! no more abandoned WIPs! there IS a fluffy happy ending. 
> 
> comments are literally love! tell me what u think! and by the way, i picture claire and ben as that baking couple from kiki's delivery service :)
> 
> my tumblr is @bauliya! you can come chat, please. i love anons.


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